Traitorous
by QuietInsomniac
Summary: Nara Shikamaru- a Traitor. Joining a rival village, he resurfaces with a new rank, new friends, new body count- and a new loyalty.
1. Chapter 1

"Why'd you turn traitor?" Genma asked, because he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon unless his captor decided to let him. Dark eyes turned to look at him, still a little fuzzy from the afterglow.

"Because Master wanted me to." was the murmured reply.

Genma hummed noncommittally, trying to forget the stickiness beneath him and the pain that the wire binding his limbs and his chakra were causing. Fuck it, he ached! Usually when he was naked and helpless in a bed, the bed was his and he was trying something kinky with his lover.

'Raidou!' the longhaired jounin snapped to alert, glancing around the darkened area for his best friend, partner, and lover. He wasn't there.

"Where'd you put Raidou!" Genma demanded, doing his best to sound and look intimidating, nevermind that he was sore, sticky, and drained of all chakra.

"The scarred jounin that was with you?" his captor asked calmly.

"Yes." Genma ground out, horribly worried that he was _dead_ and it would be _all his fault_ and _he wouldn't be there anymore_.

"Still in Konoha. He's alive." Genma breathed a little easier at those words, even knowing that they could easily be false. Something that his captor said prodded his mind. "Still in Konoha? Where are we?" He was, understandably, confused seeing as he had no recollection whatsoever of moving. He had been captured, subdued, and had progressed to where they were now.

"Not in Konoha. The only reason that you are here is because Master can extract useful information from you. Don't tempt me into doing something that I'll regret." Amber eyes went dark and empty.

Seeing Genma shut down, the traitor softened, knowing that it was the expectation of most captured shinobi that they were going to die, slowly and painfully, alone and in enemy hands.

"Don't worry." He said at last. "All of our prisoners go home eventually."

_That_ Genma had to answer. "Yeah." Genma said sarcastically, snorting in disbelief that he would get out of this unscathed. "Alive or dead?"

"That's usually a toss up." His captor answered seriously. Genma blinked in shock that he had actually been answered seriously.

"Between what?" he asked, and immediately wished that he had shut his big fat mouth. Questioning someone too much when they had you at their mercy was _not_ a good idea. The figure next to him didn't seem to mind.

"Alive and well- well as well as you can get after being interrogated, or dead and in pieces."

"Charming image there, kid." Genma cursed himself again, damnit, but this kid was _good_. It was entirely too easy to fall into casual banter with the brat, too easy to forget that he was tied up when he was talking casually, too easy to forget that the kid was a _traitor_ and had captured him for interrogation. It had to be a genjutsu or a drug or something, because there was no way that he would lower his guard this easily in a normal setting. He was _too good_ for that to happen without outside influences. The kid was definitely good if he could slip something like that past the tokujou. Or, he was specifically trained for subduing higher level shinobi, which wasn't all that farfetched.

Genma spent some time thinking about the possible reasons that he was captured, what information they could get out of him, what techiniques he might employ to resist, whether or not he could escape, and his mind drifted over their conversation, searching for any hint of information that he could use. Nothing, except that the kid worked for someone, an organization maybe, and wherever they were heading, they either killed their victims or sent them home.

And now he would be thinking about being sent home to Rai in a body bag, one bloody piece at a time. _Oh God_, what that would do to Raidou. . . . .

Busy thinking about possible future horrors, Genma almost missed the quiet "night" that came from beside him. Dark eyes closed as their owner snuggled closer to Genma in preparation of sleep. Genma tensed, then gave up after a few minutes of nothing. He fell asleep after a few minutes of listening to the sound of soft light breathing.


	2. Punished

"You tried to escape." he murmured sadly, for once sounding his age- all of _fucking __**fourteen**__ and already a traitor_- and hurt and soft and betrayed. He blinked his large dark eyes and reached out and pain enveloped Genma so quickly he didn't know what happened.

One second he was restrained and waiting to be killed the next- _painpainpainpainhurtingcrushingagonyhurtsneedlesandjutsuknivesandbrokenpain!_

Genma howled in agony, writhing on the forest floor as his torturer (the **traitor**) kept his deceptively slender fingers pressed to the small groove on the back of his head and at the base of the skull and _**slid chara rightintohisbrain**_and it fucking **hurt**!

When it stopped- it stopped and he could breath now because the _painpainpainagonyithurts _was gone- Genma lay on the cool, solid ground in a curled up little ball, trembling with fresh pain and terror.

_Holy SHIT_ his brain hurt, the memory of the searing chakra sizzling along his nerves enough to make him whimper.

"Please don't run again."

The leaf jounin flinched at the soft voice that reached his ears. He tensed and nearly bolted-certain death given no thought- when the traitor reached towards him again.

The boy snagged Genma by the back of his shirt and dragged the unresisting tokujou closer. Genma, for his part, stayed curled up and shivered because that had been pure pain, and he was sure that the brat could've kept it up for much longer than the minute that he did, and if his captor did it again, and such a short time afterwards the first one, Genma was sure he'd break.

Genma breathed in the comforting smells of the forest and moss and peat, familiar things, sturdy and reassuring. He was already calmer, even if the memory made him flinch.

"You won't, will you?"

And with a final sounding _click, _Genma felt a weight settle around his neck that smelled like soft leather and made about as much noise as his dog tags and sensed the chakra that was bound into the object and understood.

The bastard had put a _collar_ on him, and it was probably loaded with chakra-seals that could detonate if he tried to run again, and a few tracers, just in case.

And what scared Genma the most was that he couldn't find the strength to care or to fight it.

"Good boy."


	3. Breakdown

He had ben interrogated mercilessly, whipped and stabbed and cut and burned and beaten and jutsu'ed until his mind was chaos, dark shadows and pain and fear. He flinched at most sounds and screamed when anyone was closer than a foot away from him.

When he was released and he was lucid and sensible and hydrated enough to understand what was going on (_**We're healing you, shinobi-san, so don't move or the needles currently inside you, sewing up your organs will shift and quite possibly kill you**_) he was told that he had broken and talked after three months. Genma remembered enough about that time-**screams coming from down the hall of his small, dry, bare dark cell**-to realize that his interrogators had barely asked any questions about Konoha. No questions about his home, or about security, or any other of the devastating pieces of information that he knew about Konoha and it's secret passageways and routines and protocols.

No questions about Konohagakure, focusing on _him_, him and his jutsu, his training and his abilities and his reasons to livesurvivekilwhore for Konoha and he had answered their questions, scream after scream.

He had tried to commit suicide seventeen times, failing each and left with fewer and fewer options after each attempt.

-------

**He shivered, looking at the small shard of stone that had chipped off the wall after his interrogators had slammed his head against it. His head hurt and he was still in the chakra shackles and he was in horrible shape- bad enough that he wouldn't be able to make it back to Konoha even if he got out. Genma looked at his grotesquely swollen and twisted foot, and knew that he wouldn't make it out of the cell alive. He methodically brought the sliver to bear, gouging long, bloody furrows in his arms and legs and torso, wherever he could reach and as quickly as he could. He was certain that he would bleed out before they could find him, especially as he had already cut several veins. **

**He was interrupted in the middle of what would've been one of his last cuts- he was weakening fast and damn if it didn't scare him that he was happy about that- and his vision went black and he knew no more. **

**When Genma woke up, he was in his freshly cleaned cell with a newly reinforced steel wall with no sign of what he had done visible on his skin besides the odd faint silver line. He screamed and screamed because in that moment he knew that he wouldn't be getting out of his cell until **_**they **_**let him, and they wouldn't let him until he broke. And he knew what happened to broken shinobi, and Genma despaired that he would ever see the sky or breath fresh air or feel the glorious feeling of his chakra flowing through him again.**

**-------**

eventually he ran out of ways to kill himself. Or maybe he had just forgotten them all, and since he had learned seven hundred and fifty-eight ways to off himself in the Academy, that wasn't good, was it?

They had given him over to Nara Shikamaru, the traitor that had brought him there in the first place, and slowly slowly slowly Shikamaru had pieced him together and made him sane again.

It had taken time, a year and five months and seventeen hours and twenty nine seconds of constant contact and stability and fits that could last for hours and little white pills that rattled in their paper cup. It took multiple visits to the hospital and years of therapy and many sleepless nights that were spent holding the shaking tokujou as he screamed and railed and wept at nothing, but Genma survived, a bit worse for the wear and more than a little insane, but he was the _good_ kind of insane, the kind where they could think of ways to keep you from hurting others and yourself, with as little problems as possible.

Genma survived and clung to Shikamaru, the dark eyed shinobi who had been his rock and world for the past year. The fact that Shikamaru was also the reason for his mental instability didn't seem to register in Genma's mind. He was dead set on Shikamaru. When it was explained to the shinobi in question in careful and politically correct terms that the insane Konoha ninja that he had been bunking with for the past year and a half had decided to start calling him 'Master', Shikamaru closed his eyes, took a deep breath, blew it out, then announced that he was going to get drunk.

A year and a half after Genma was captured by Shikamaru, he was officially declared dead. Half of Konoha's jounin and chunin appeared for his wake.


	4. Nightmare

Genma screamed in absolute terror as pale hands **rottingstinkingsloughingoff ** reached up for him out of the darkness, a darkness that was suddenly swirling around him, and he was standing knee deep in blood while the decaying corpses of his victims moved towards him in slow, dragging steps, eyes falling out and maggots writhing in long dead flesh.

He was back in the cell _**backinthecell ohgods i'mbackinthecell**_, chained and helpless while razor lined whips carved his back to the bone and he howled in agony, thrashing about ineffectually. He was in complete darkness –sensory deprivation. He was restrained as white-hot irons were brought closer to the soles of his feet.

He was on his knees, being thrust into as he closed his eyes and began hypnotizing himself to a happier place—could he remember one?

He was threatened-starved-shown nightmare after nightmare filled with bodies to accuse him and bloody visions of his most horrific missions.

Warm hands were soothing him then, pulling him against a warm solid, comfortingly _alive_ chest, where he could hear the dull thump of the heart and feel the rising and falling of the chest. Genma pulled himself out of the nightmare, gasping for air like a dying man struggles for his last breath.

"Shhh." A pleasant baritone made it's way through the sleepy haze of residual fear. Genma blinked open his deep amber eyes, (_escapeescapeescape_) and stared, uncomprehendingly at Shikamaru.

Usually it was Raidou who woke him up after he had a nightmare, Raidou who held him and rocked him, Raidou who cleaned up after him when he as sick and Raidou who did everything that Shikamaru did for him now.

Shikamaru wouldn't ever replace Raidou, but he was fast making his way up to Genma's second most important person.

It had, after all, been months now since he had first been brought to the Interrogation unit of Dokugakure. Genma was slowly starting to settle into a routine, learning the names of people, going out on missions- guarded of course, _always _guarded- and training with the dark eyed youth.

This wasn't the first time that Shikamaru had woken him up from a nightmarish dream. It certainly wouldn't be the last.

"Thanks master." Genma managed to whisper. His voice was rough and low, hoarse from his screams. Shikamaru rolled his eyes. He didn't like the term that Genma had given him, but hadn't protested against it too vocally, preferring to let the shattered shinobi find his equilibrium himself, with someone there to catch him if he fell. And if Genma had selected him to be that person, well, Shikamaru could think of worse things to do.

Shikamaru looked at the tokujou, scrutinizing him for something that was out of place. Mouth tightening, the genius _tch_ed and got up, shifting Genma onto the bed, pretending that he didn't see the tremors that still traveled the older shinobi's body. Rummaging around the drawers in the bathroom, Shikamaru emerged with a small bottle in his hands.

A thump from the bedroom where he had left his roommate had him cursing and blurring towards the source of the sound. Shikamaru felt his stomach drop at the scene that confronted him, but his mind ruthlessly shoved that instinct down, focusing on the _here_ and _now_.

Genma was in the corner of the room, huddled in a ball, whimpering at nothing, pleading for them to _leave him __alone;__ he didn't __mean__ to, it was a __mission_. Shikamaru took this in at a glance, and resigned himself to not getting any sleep that night.

Kneeling next to the cornered shinobi, the traitor cautiously reached out. Bad idea.

**Wham!** Genma was still a damn-good shinobi, whatever else he may be. And damn-good shinobi were _dangerous_. A quick grab and twist and sickening _crack!_ and Shikamaru remembered exactly why his master had wanted the tokujou for interrogation. His wrist was definitely broken, and damn if that hadn't startled him, but his priority at the moment was Genma.

Wrapping his wrist quickly with tape and a brace, Shikamaru patiently stayed next to Genma until his steady chakra presence permeated the broken shinobi's mind.

And then Genma was lunging towards him, fingers seeking and finding holds in his flesh.

The fight was brief, a moment of tangled, thrashing limbs and obscene shifts in position and grunts of pain from Shikamaru as his wrist was jarred and he was bludgeoned round the head with Genma's forearm as Genma tried to avoid his knee.

They ended up with Genma straddling Shikamaru, holding his hands captive above his head. Shikamaru knew where this was going, and he accepted it.

Meeting the fiery gold eyes, the genius nodded, slightly. Just once, but it was enough.

Genma was possessed, frantic, to _touchlivebreath _to _feelfuckbesolidandreal_ and Shikamaru lay and waited as the broken shinobi stripped both of them and flipped the dark eyed jounin onto his stomach.

Shikamaru winced slightly, his wrist throbbing after the searing flash of pain that being flipped had caused. Fingers were thrust in front of his face. "Suck."

One word, but enough to tell the traitor that his roommate was lucid enough- in the present enough- to not want to hurt his partner.

He sucked. Then they were together, Genma grunting in animalistic fury at some inner demon that he was facing, Shikamaru arching in response to thrusts and moaning in response to white-knuckled fingers and a harsh enough to bruise grip on his hips.

When hot seed spilled into him and Genma collapsed, panting and exhausted, emotionally drained and tired, Shikamaru gently pulled himself out from under the shinobi, being mindful of his wrist and sat up.

Crap, his butt hurt.

He made to get up when a large scarred hand clamped around his wrist. He looked down to see weary eyes looking back at him.

"Did I do that?" Genma nodded very faintly towards the genius's wrist.

"Yeah." Shikamaru had never seen the point of hiding the truth from people who could handle it.

"Sorry." And with that, the dull amber eyes slid shut, and the shinobi started dozing.

Shikamaru looked at the sleeping shinobi in bemusement. Weren't his eyes red-gold earlier? Ah well.

The dark eyed traitor eased himself up, slightly wobbly on his feet, ass aching and legs boneless. He stumbled over to the bathroom and started cleaning himself.

Mission sex was mission sex. Everyone did it who was higher than genin, and even then. . .

Well, sometimes things happened. Shikamaru had had mission sex before, had been mission sex, knew and understood the desperation, the _need_ of comfort, the reassurance that they _weren't_ monsters, that they _could_ feel, that their friends and family were _alive_, and the rage and frustration and sorrow and the residue of adrenaline and panic, the first realizations that you went out a team of four and came back alone.

Yeah, Shikamaru had experience with mission sex.

He didn't regret helping a fellow shinobi in need, even if it meant his body. Others had done the same for him.

…

…

Besides, Genma was a _great_ fuck.

Shikamaru couldn't help the lazy grin that spread across his face.

In the bedroom, Genma slept without nightmares.

----

Authors Note:

To Lils, my only reviewer so far:

Thanks so much for reviewing, it really made my day when my new story- first one!- got a review on the first chapter.

This chapter is dedicated to you.

This chapter also took longer than others, because I was wrangling with the mission sex part- what to do with it, whether I should put it in or not, would it suck, should it be in HD or glossed over, ect. I don't want to give the impression that Genma raped Shika, because the way that I see it, he didn't. I explained this in the story, that mission sex is a coping mechanism for shinobi, when they're overwhelmed or breaking, and they need to be reassured that they're alive, or that they're real, and that they have feelings and aren't monsters.

Most of the stories that I read mission sex in have ANBU in them, which I assume to be because of the number of dirty missions that they get.

I read Nezuko, JBMcDragon, Scarlet Spiral(before it shut down) and Fallen Leaves. Most of these have fics that describe the 'darker' side of the shinobi lifestyle, which is something that I like to explore. Sorry if this offends you, but my story's rated what it is for a reason.

~QuietInsomniac


	5. Habits

Genma liked cuddling. He was touchy about his hands, as well as his back and feet, but he liked cuddling. You just couldn't hold him too tight, or his breathing would quicken and his eyes would dart nervously around the room, searching for escape routes. If you kept it up, he would start thrashing wildly, just trying to _escapescapescape_ the constricting hold.

Both shinobi knew entirely too much about holds and the horrible things that could come from being trapped in one.

Genma- a tight hold around his middle, restraining him from running back to the field, a field that was exploding in great gouts of roaring flame and the stench of sulfur. Why couldn't they understand that it was his **sister** in there, his confidant sister who was probably harmonizing with the agonized screams that resounded with the nauseating smell of cooked meat and the sharp _tang!_ in the air that meant chakra?

'Sumi-onee san. I'll get revenge for that. Promise.' He had started wearing his hiate-ate a different way, then, the metal plate cradling the back of his head. He had started holding a senbon in his mouth after another hold- _a chokehold, designed to make anybody in it choke on nothing if they moved_- had prevented him from doing anything as his team-_rookies. Barely genin they were, and they were __his__ responsibility. And he had failed them, just like he had failed Sumi. And now they were probably going to haunt him, just like his dead sister_- died in front of him.

Shikamaru- a bruising grip around his neck as he was dragged out of his cell. Beginning procedure- _inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Silence. Nothing is wrong. Any pain is nonexistent._- he blanked out the taunts[_hypnotize yourself all you want, little leaf. We'll get answers no matter what._] the beatings [_hit him again- and a thunderous crack to the back of his skull and he blacked out_] the phantom and real screams of pain coming down the hall [_make it stop! Please! Tell us what we want to know. And helpless, sobbing as he repeats the only things that he is allowed to say. Nara Shikamaru. Chunin. 012611. _]

Finally rescued. **Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorrysorrysorry. So so sorry. ** Failure.

Shikamaru couldn't stand to be in bright sunlight for more than a few hours. As a consequence, the two of them traveled mostly in the early morning and late afternoon. Genma happened to be a morning person.

Shikamaru was touchy about his stuff. That was one of the first things that Genma had learned about the quiet traitor. Don't touch Shikamaru's stuff. Ever. Under pain of horrible horrible things.

Shikamaru was touchy about his left arm. The first time Genma had grabbed it, he had been punished, using the most extreme punishment he could.

Genma never did it again.

Genma also happened to be a good cook. He could make almost anything edible. Shikamaru was not good at cooking. He was better at setting things on fire, and was getting more and more adept at putting them out as time went by.

About a year and a half had passed since then. Genma had decided to become a shinobi again. He was directly under the command of Shikamaru, since Shikamaru was the only one in the entire village- _really, how convenient was that?_ - who knew how to channel his chakra into someone's brain without frying the delicate tenketsu and nerves.

Occasionally, Genma thought about Konoha. Raidou. The friends- _the life_- he'd left behind. What was happening in his old village. Who had died since he had left.

That never lasted too long, though.

After all, there was training to do, missions to complete, a certain traitorous Nara to protect, and things that needed to be done.

Shikamaru wasn't oblivious. He knew what Genma though about when he gazed out over the village. He knew what was running through his mind. Memories and flashbacks and questions went through his mind too.

The Nara had had a reason for turning traitor. After all, he **was** a genius. Nothing he did was without a reason.

Genma had issues. Shikamaru had issues. They dealt with them like the shinobi they were, with sex and sparring and holding each other as they beat themselves bloody or doling out the small white pills that every shinobi had on them.

They worked things out, and if they weren't quite sane afterwards. . . .

Well, the village cold always get more tools. Just, maybe they wouldn't be quite as useful.

-----

Author's Note:

Lils: Still my one and only reviewer!

Ah well. Anyway, in response to your questions, Shikamaru's master might come in later. A long time later. Like, so much later that he's probably dead. Yeah. . . . maybe he'll come in sooner.

This chapter's kinda short, but I think that this was a good place to end it, and I had ERB's for the past 3 days- straight.

Not as much character depth as I would've liked, but my next one's gonna be longer. Promise.

Anyway. . .

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


	6. Sanity

The odd pair had changed in the year and a half that they had been in Dokugakure. True to it's name, most of the shinobi had a very good knowledge of poisons and antidotes.

Nara Shikamaru, the lazy-ass genius, was different. Harder. He had released his hair from it's constricting ponytail, keeping it behind his ears, his hiate-ate around his head. Most people wouldn't see him as a shinobi, his hiate-ate folded like a sweatband, the metal plate hidden beneath his hair, cradling the base of his skull.

He looked like a slim young man, deceptively slender muscles lining his lithe frame. Dark eyes set in a lightly tanned face, pierced ears boasting a hoop in his left ear and two studs in his right.

Each one contained a lethal dose of undiluted venom. Acidic. Highly corrosive. Horribly painful way to die. [_face twisted in agony: Tell us what we want to know_]

He had exchanged his fishnet and vest for a dark, loose shirt, with sleeves that went past his fingertips. His cut offs? Gone, replaced with dark loose pants, with red stained bandages wrapped around his middle.

But what had really changed, was him. His clothes didn't make him a new person. His change of loyalties? They definitely changed _something_. The responsibility and stress that he was handling had aged him. Mature before, the jaded young man had become a veteran of battles and loss.

No, Nara Shikamaru wasn't the same Nara Shikamaru who had left Konohagakure. He had passed information for a month before he had left, and had taken a shitload of missions since his defection. [_A ranked. Assassination. Big Yakuza. Pissed off a Damiyo. Ready? A feral grin, shadows playing about his eyes. Always._]

What had changed? [**Tell us. **_**Spitting blood.**_** No. **_**Narrowed eyes. **_**Beat him. **_**Screaming in pain as his body was broken- againandagainandagain. **_**Ready to talk? **_**Sneering in defiance. **_** Go to hell. **_**Unmoved. **_**Pity. Dispose of him. He's useless.**] He had been tortured, true. Multiple times, even.

[_Pillowing his head on the ground, he automatically stretched out his senses to locate his partner, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep fully if he didn't know where Genma was._] Responsibility of Genma was new- and after all, who **didn't** want a broken, note-quite-sane jounin as a roommate and immediate subordinate? Taking care of the tokujou was a large task in and of itself: having to know Genma's triggers, the warning signs, what made him uncomfortable, where he was in his element, cleaning up after him, patching him up on missions-_he got hurt too easily on missions, took risks_- and manning the delicate balance of their lives.

How had they become so close? You couldn't help it, really. Forced cohabitation, forced exposure every day, it became habit to look after each other. Some things were like that.

Nara Shikamaru and Shiranui Genma have a relationship created out of trust and pills and touchstones and blood and sweat and tears.

Genma had changed as well. The torture and interrogation that he had been subjected to at the very beginning of his stay at Dokugakure had broken him, well and truly. He had been shattered, crushed, utterly destroyed. Shikamaru had stayed with him the entire way, from the beginning to the end of his spastic healing.

Genma had never quite healed from the torture. His sanity was cracked, but he had always been a little off- _all jounin are crazy in their own way. Get used to it, gaki._- and now his poor, insane, laughing head was filled with nightmares and blood.

That isn't to say that he was psychotic. He wasn't. He was just crazy. Shikamaru was just as crazy- he thought that Genma was cute when the tokujou was handing him a fresh, bloody, human heart.

Insanity isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Other jounin looked at them warily, knowing that to this pair, only a few things mattered. When Shikamaru was assigned a team, they preformed missions quickly, efficiently, without a mishap, and always came back slightly traumatized.

Shikamaru wasn't assigned newbies anymore. [**Dead. Too slow, wasn't worth his time, **_**hurry up**_**, boom, hacking and slashing, blood everywhere like rain tinted death. Oops.**]

Genma was allowed to take solo missions now. People watched the insanity glittering in his eyes, lurking in the depths of poisoned honey. They still knew that he obeyed the Nara _–only the Nara-_ and they observed as he carried out his orders [missions] with a frightening single-mindedness and no care for others.

The higher ups let them kill on missions, let them interrogate some of the prisoners, sent them on missions, watched them quietly, utilized them and their skills. The pair knew this. Understood this. Didn't care.

The genius was a mystery to those who knew him. Why was _he_ crazy?

There is a fine line between genius and insanity. Nara Shikamaru was teetering on the very edge.

Genma wasn't allowed to have a senbon in his mouth anymore. Not since that _unfortunate_ accident involving thirteen civilians, rope, kunai, a trial run of a new poison, and Genma's interesting ability to spit his needles with deadly precision.

Genma had also acquired an interesting hobby, consisting of an entire room that was dedicated to housing cages and aquariums filled with rodents, snakes, and various plants and corals. He was turning out poisons at a frightening speed, and often emerged from his workshop sprayed with blood, or examining a vial of oddly colored liquid.

Dokugakure kept them for their genius and their pure venom.

----

Author's Note:

I just realized that my chapters are actually short. Huh. My updates might come a little later than usual because I'll be trying to make them longer. I've also noticed that this fic hasn't really been veering the way the summary says it does, but it will soon. I'm revamping a lot of the later stuff, because I think that it's turning out generically.

My writing style changed for this chapter- not really sure why, but it's not as dark as, say, Punished was.

Konoha will be coming in later chapters- I'm thinking that this fic will be about 20-25 chapters long.

Thanks to my now **TWO reviewers, who made my day. Not really sure where Lils went to. **

**Cheers,**

**QuietInsomniac**


	7. Travel

"Pack up."

Genma looked up from his book in surprise at the terse order. Shikamaru was already moving past his doorway, heading towards his own room.

"Who's the target?" He called, already moving to obey. _No 'where are we going'. Not anymore. _The tokujou opened the adjoining door between the rooms, then strode over to his closet.

"No one." Shikamaru grunted from where he was folding shirts. Genma blinked at that one, then shrugged it of and continued hunting for his pack. His master knew what he was doing- IQ of 200 and all that.

Shikamaru glanced up to check on his subordinate. "You won't need that." He said, startling the tokujou out of glaring at his bag, which was stuck in the closet. A _look_ from the amber eyes made him explain himself a bit more before Genma brought out a kunai. Being all but glued to each other for more than a year cut down on the need for unnecessary words.

"Don't take a full pack- you won't need it."

"What then?" Genma asked, shoving the bulky frame aside and rooting through the closet for something else.

"Bring a rucksack." Shikamaru suggested. "The kind without a frame, and a good strap. Big enough to fit at least a weeks worth of clothes and some other things."

The jounin started placing his neatly folded clothes into his own bag.

"Where are we going?" Shikamaru barely glanced up from taking stock of his medical supplies.

"Konohagakure." The poison specialist stopped at that. Konoha. His mouth quirked.

"Konoha. . . . huh."

The darker shinobi stood silently debating over whether to pack an extra packet of soldier pills or a package of blood pills. He looked up at Genma's tone of voice.

"Problem?" he asked, measured voice surprisingly gentle. The older assassin thought it over quietly.

The rustle of cloth and the crinkling of sterile paper was all that could be heard for a moment.

Eventually, he shook his head in the negative.

"Nah, no problem here Master."

Shikamaru looked over his roommate with a piercing gaze. Dark amber eyes met his scrutiny evenly. Nodding ever so slightly, the Nara returned to his supplies.

"Done?" Genma raised his head, hastily stuffing the last of his rat bars in a pocket.

"Done." He affirmed, flushing slightly at the somewhat amused glance his fellow shinobi sent at him.

Shikamaru tactfully chose not to comment.

"Check- weeks worth, rats, med, storage, weapons, cash, various others including toiletries, extra bandages and a sewing kit?" the jounin rattled off a list of items that should have been packed

"Check."

"We're good to go."

Nodding to each other, the duo hoisted their packs onto their backs and leapt out the window.

Genma's curiosity was aroused when as they were signing out of the gates, the Gate Guards seemed to be exuding a mixture of amusement and fear.

When the two nuke-nin were well on their way to their destination, Genma cracked.

"Spill." He said, not quite succeeding in hiding the grin that had snuck onto his face.

Shikamaru flushed slightly, and attempted to avoid the subject. "Where?"

"Uh huh." Genma grinned, not at all put off. "Why were the Gate Guards so amused?"

"No idea what you're talking about."

They bantered for a while, until Shikamaru's shoulders slumped and he asked resignedly, "You're not going to stop pestering me about this, are you?"

"Nope!" came the cheerful reply. The young genius sighed.

Deep breath. In. Out. In. Out. Ready. Set. Go.

"There was a genin examination that I didn't know about, and I was assigned a _team_ that I didn't know about and their test was to attack me or draw blood andIaccidentallykilledthem and now I'm ."

A pause.

"Well, shit."

---

"So." Genma stated.

His companion didn't bother to open his eyes from where he was resting on the bed in the small hotel room that they were sharing.

"So?"

"Why Konoha?"

Shikamaru stayed silent for a while. The older assassin waited patiently.

"It's the next team's test." _Wasn't expecting that. . . . _

"Next team?" He let the slightest hint of surprise color his voice, knowing the other would pick up on it.

Shikamaru hummed noncommittally, snuggling into the comforting warmth of the blankets.

"Right. Jounin secrecy and all that. You think that you could let me know if I should expect to get jumped anytime soon? _I'd_ like to be able to _not_ kill the brats." Genma said wryly.

The genius ignored the tokujou's teasing loftily. Sleep was more pressing at the moment.

The elder assassin watched his master sleep with soft golden eyes.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Shiranui Genma sat back and kept watch.

He was drifting off when his roommate stirred. Blinking bleary eyes at the younger man, he said the first thing on his mind: "You look adorable when you're asleep."

Shikamaru stopped mid-yawn. Paused and thought about that. Decided that he was too tired to make a big deal out it. Continued to yawn.

Genma simply went along with it, and stretched, before uncoiling from his position and slinking over to the bed.

Without voicing a word of complaint, the Nara drew a cup of tea and started watch. It was too late to travel, anyway.

---

Author's Note:

Not very happy about this chapter, because it turned out shorted than I wanted it to be. Oh, well. Besides that, I think it turned out OK. I'm also pretty sure that I got most of my mistakes, but if you spot any, please tell me!

Thanks to all of the people who've read this story, it really makes my day when I get a review, or even if I check my stats, and there are more hits than when I left.

This story is also going to become a bit lighter as it moves on- I don't want them to be cracked forever, people, but they'll never be sane again- and this chapter was meant to be filler/show you that they mesh well. Let me know how I did?

This chapter is dedicated to Gleam, an awesome author who writes really good horror (beware, it's creepy) and who will probably never read this story. Meh.

Cheers,

QuietInsomniac


	8. Forests

Genma woke suddenly, pale honey eyes immediately darting towards the darkest corner of the room, where Shikamaru lounged in a cushioned chair, reading a book. Dark eyes watched him calmly, even as he slid out of the big bed and padded over to the younger shinobi. Kneeling next to the chair, Genma gazed at him, taking in his dark eyes and deceptively slender hands and fine-boned features.

Shikamaru put down his book after a minute, and shifted to a more comfortable position, unconsciously folding his legs into the lotus.

"What's wrong?" he asked gently. Genma rocked his weight back to sit on his heels.

"Nothing." He murmured. "I. . . I woke suddenly, that's all."

The traitorous Nara stared at the tokujou for a brief moment, before shifting closer to the edge of his chair. Gesturing the older shinobi closer, Shikamaru began kneading Genma's tense shoulders and neck, pressing firmly down on pressure points and nerve clusters. Despite himself, Genma relaxed with a sigh, basking in the rare physical attention that he was getting. He nearly groaned when the cool hands left his shoulders, because even though not a lot of people knew it, having a genius's memory was good for several things- one being memorizing the body's sweet spots.

Nara Shikamaru gave the _best_ massages if he felt like it, even without resorting to chakra tricks.

"Can you get to sleep now?" the jounin asked, looking at his limp subordinate with faint concern running through the dark depths. Genma looked away[because those eyes were blood and darkness and insanity and shadows with redredred everywhere] because he never _could_ hold Shikamaru's eyes for long.

"I. . . yeah." He determined, after several minutes of lazily considering if he could, in fact, fall asleep again, and deciding that yes, yes he could. Maybe.

Shikamaru slinked over to the vacant bed, and turned around, waiting for the tokujou to get up off the floor and join him. With a slightly put-upon sigh, Genma hauled himself the scant feet that separated them.

Shikamaru eased into the thick covers and settled close to the wall. Turning his head slightly, he patted the empty space next to him. Genma stood next to the bed and looked at the shadow weaver, shock showing clearly in his clouded amber eyes.

The jounin just smiled softly and shifted even further back.

When he felt Genma joining him a few minutes later, Shikamaru rolled over, watching placidly as the older shinobi froze in the middle of the act of sliding into the bed. The jounin reached out and tugged slightly at the leather collar.

Shikamaru couldn't help but smile fondly at the tokujou['_his_ tokujou' his mind snarled possessively] where he was curled up next to his side.

When Genma woke up again at three in the morning, he did so silently, not altering his breathing pattern and keeping his eyes closed. Listening intently, he caught the sound of someone humming faint snatches of a well known song, the quiet tap of bare feet on uncarpeted floor and the gentle _clink_ of dog tags hanging free. Sensing a familiar chakra signature, Genma relaxed.

"Good morning, pet." Shikamaru barely glanced at the tokujou as he greeted him, preoccupied with making breakfast.

The assassin hardly paid any attention to the nickname.

"Morning master." Came the lazy reply. Genma looked at the cooking food appreciatively.

The traitorous youth set down two bowls of miso and a plate of tamagoyaki, every action being followed.

"Breakfast." He announced unnecessarily. Genma sat down and waited, and Shikamaru's eyes gentled as he caught sight of the golden eyes that watched him.

He had long ago figured out that the tokujou's eyes changed color depending on his mood- something to do with his chakra output in his eyes and it fluctuating with his level of tenseness and, respectively, his mood.

That particular color only came out when Genma was happy, content enough to laze and tease and watch and cuddle. It was going to be a good day, Shikamaru could already tell.

They ate in relative silence, enjoying the rare peace. At the end of the meal, Shikamaru thought of something.

"I know someone here." He said suddenly. "He's a poisoner." '_Like you' _went unsaid.

"You need anything?"

Glancing out the window absently, Genma noted the very early time- 4:00 in the morning, and mentally reviewed his stores of poisons and senbon.

He didn't really _need_ anything, but there _were_ several things that he was low on, and some things that he could use and didn't have.

"If he has venom from that blue spider from Wind, I could use that." He voiced slowly, thinking. "I think that the most important things that I need to stock up on is arsenic, insecticide, fire-crab shells, and if he has it, coral from the west reef of Reed country. Sleeper35 would be nice too, but it's not a priority."

He paused for a moment, thinking on other things that he might need. "If you're restocking, I could definitely use another pack or two of senbon."

Shikamaru nodded, picked up his list, and left. When he returned, he was hefting a crate, a bag and a toolkit, the kitchen was clean and Genma was waiting on the bed, flipping a kunai.

"The crate has your poisons in it, the bag has your senbon and rat bars and various non-com meds. The toolbox has combat meds." Genma nodded automatically, preoccupied with prying the top off the crate with a kunai.

Shikamaru divvied up the rest of the supplies as the older assassin scanned over the neatly labeled vials that had been packed inside the wooden box. To his surprise, everything that he had asked for was there, along with some things that he hadn't.

"Med kit." The shadow master said as he tossed over a hip pouch. Genma let it fall on the bed, grunting acknowledgement as he carefully slid the deadly vials into a leather carry case- sealed for resistance, chakra lock, cushioning and a bit of space.

When the two of them has finished packing, they hefted their packs, clipped their new pouches on, and left, arguing good naturedly about the rightful owner of the last peanut butter rat bar.

---

The odd pair leaped through the large trees with the ease of long practice, jumping down lightly about a mile from the Gates of Konoha. Walking the rest of the way, they discussed what they were going to do there.

"Wait."

"Why?"

"Test."

"Yeah, but really, from Doku to Konoha?"

A slight smirk from the younger.

"A _good_ test."

Genma dropped it.

"How long. . ."

"Probably about a month."

"You think the ANBU will buy it? Two foreign shinobi just wandering around Konoha for a month?"

"No." Genma opened his mouth to say something when Shikamaru cut him off again.

"Which is why we have a cover mission."

"Which is?"

Shikamaru tossed over a scroll. Frowning, Genma opened it and started reading it.

When he finished, he rolled it up and handed it back to his superior with a wry look.

"It wasn't _my_ choice on the missions that were assigned to us to complete while we were there!"

Bad choice of words.

Bad timing, too, because a patrol of shinobi were in sensing distance, but mostly bad word choice.

Genma tensed and tightened his grip on the senbon that had appeared in between his fingers until they were white at the knuckles.

[not being in control was _bad_. _Badbadbadbadbad._ Because if he wasn't in control and the master wasn't in control that meant that they were in _danger_ and that meant that there would be **screamingblood**_**laughter**_]

"Fuck."

Shikamaru moved quickly, disarming the insane tokujou with a barely there _flicker_ of his chakra and a _snatch_ of epic proportions. "Genma, you with me?"

No response.

"Double fuck."

Stowing the needles, the jounin dropped his pack [keep the _papers, __**moron!**_] and crouched by a tree, immobilizing his subordinate's shadow with a handy little tag that he had created in lieu of having the chakra to perform the Nara clan's jutsu.

"Genma, c'mon, get with me here. We have visitors coming soon!"

Nothing. Triple fuck.

"Agent Shiranui, Tokubetsu Jounin of Dokugakure, report."

"Status operational." Genma's voice was distant, dead. _In fact, it sounded like he was_ _in __**shock**__. . . ah crap. He was **not** equipped to deal with this. . ._

"Mission brief?" Shikamaru kept his voice calm and in control, moving closer to the trapped man. Crap, they were running out of time- they were definitely within sensing range of the patrol.

"Umihara Takashi died three days ago. Umihara Mei died one day after him. Mission aborted. Window of opportunity lost."

Great, flashbacks, in the _middle _of what was about to become a potential battlefield. _Just_ what he needed.

"Mission abort confirmed."

Five shinobi leaped down from the trees. Shikamaru ignored them for the moment [can't afford to do that forever Nara], evaluated his options, hauled back and slapped his subordinate soundly across the face.

"What the fuck!?!" Shikamaru breathed a silent sigh of relief at the outraged yell. Genma was back and, yes, he was pissed, but at least he was back in the present.

The last thing they needed was a breakdown in front of enemy shinobi.

A twitch of his hands and the sealed kunai was back in his hands, allowing the older assassin the freedom of movement.

"Why'd you have to _slap_ me, taicho!?" the indignant tokujou rubbed his cheek, pouting.

"We have guests and you were being rude, that's why." Shikamaru answered, looking at the patrol. [three chunin and two jounin judging by their chakra levels and two of them were clearly taijutsu fans by their muscle mass and one didn't seem to be much of anything a genjutsu specialist probably-] He snapped out of his quick analysis of the shinobi and smiled.

"Hello, and welcome."

----

Author's Note:

This is my longest chapter yet! still not very long but whatever.

This time it's dedicated to: Storymaster Caith, a great author who has written a very interesting AU focused on Suna( specifically the darker side of the middle brother, the one claimed by the strings.)

Still a bit of a filler chapter, but they're finally interacting with shinobi that aren't themselves. . . so it's progressing! Slightly. . . ehehehe. . .

Yeah. .

Anyway, I hope you like it!'

Cheers!

QuietInsomniac


	9. Home

Several in the patrol started looking unobtrusively at the surrounding foliage, wary of any traps or backup. Genma noticed and bared his teeth in a feral, feline curl of the lips. One of the chunin flinched slightly, leaning _away_ from the obviously crazy shinobi with a nervous smile plastered on his face. The assassin snorted in contemptuous disgust- what kind of shinobi couldn't fake a smile?

"Name, affiliation, rank and reason for being in Konohagakure territory." a jounin challenged.

Shikamaru tilted his head sharply to one side, so that he was looking at the man who had spoken sideways. Slowly[slowlyslowly-dontwannamessitup- giggling insanely] he grinned at the other shinobi. It was a sick mockery of the emotion. The patrol put up their guard.

The unrecognized traitor ripped a scroll out of one of his numerous pouches with a startling speed. The chunin flinched again-the jounin were too well trained to let such an amateur mistake show, but their hands drifted towards their weapons, just in case. Licking his lips slowly [almost seductively] he held it out, letting it dangle from his fingertips, barely two feet away from the patrol.

He could feel Genma's chakra behind him, a steady, slightly pulsing presence of restrained fire and little rivers of darkness and wide bands of deep blue.

Dark blue, it was, so dark it was almost black.

'_D__oesn't matter, does it?' _ Genma'd said when he'd inquired about it, at the beginning of their time together, before they had learned to work with each other. _'S chakra, and 's mine and it's a funny color, but who cares? No one. _And here his voice had dropped to a not-quite-here whisper. _No one cares 'bout us, little traitor, because we're just the monsters that hide in the dark. _His voice lilted in a sing-song pattern. _And no one cares about monsters._

"Jounin." Shikamaru twirled the slim scroll, watching it dance over and around his knuckles hypnotically.

"Tokubetsu Jounin." Genma straightened up, glancing Shikamaru's way. His fingers twitched, an instinctive reaction- an aborted reaction- to the suspicious gazes of the patrol.

"Dokugakure." The other jounin's eyes hardened at the name. The odd pair stayed still and let the slow dance of the tightly wound paper do the talking for them.

"Mission."

"I assume the mission is diplomatic in nature?" _If not, you're crappy shinobi-what kind of ninja is caught fighting amongst themselves in an enemy's grounds?_

Shikamaru could read the undertones of the question. "Yeah, sure." _No, but the papers say so and you can't go against them. Ha._

Genma padded towards his superior, slinking around the shadows on the ground.

"Confirmation required." _Hand over your 'papers'. _

Shikamaru raised his head upright, so he was looking at the patrol face on. "The mission statement's right here." _Come get it, pretty boy._

"Asano." the slim man-chunin by the looks of his vest, stepped forward, holding out his hand expectantly. _Get the papers, be careful, and watch the older guy._

Shikamaru handed the scroll over, standing passively as the man [_Asasno, his names Asano, use it. Shoving the stray thought aside—targets don't have names_] took hold of his calmly and retreated slowly. Textbook. The genius felt a small smirk tugging at his mouth.

"All's in order." The leader announced after scrutinizing the mission orders. _You win this round. _ "As delegates, you will, of course, need an escort to show your importance." _That doesn't mean that I won't be keeping an eye on you. _

"Of course." Shikamaru took the offer of an escort with ease. _Whatever._ Genma followed the double meanings with ease, amusing himself with practicing the slightly rusty skill.

The patrol split up after a few curt orders-_ You three go with them. We'll continue_- and they gained a free passage to Konoha.

Their 'escort' exchanged a few uneasy glances when the shinobi they were 'escorting' began chuckling at nothing at all, stopping, and then starting up again a few minutes later. The laughter stopped soon enough.

Passing through the various checkpoints and the three safety gates, the small group of shinobi descended to the ground about a half-mile from the main gates.

As they walked the well worn path, the jounin started to explain the general rules of Konoha.

No killing unless you have a **very** good reason- like, say, 'He was going to kill me first', or, 'He was a threat to the Hokage'. Something like that wouldn't keep Konoha interrogators happy [their job was to _interrogate_ the idiots that tried to assassinate their Hokage, and **how**, **exactly** were they to do that if said idiot was _dead_?], but it would stop them from being killed on the spot.

Try to avoid conflict with Konoha shinobi. Really, from the highly professional way that they were behaving themselves [Genma didn't count. He was too fucked up to count-even if you trusted him with your life and the lives of every single fucker in that goddamn village] you could tell that they had common sense and would keep to that rule.

There are _reasons_ that there are separate bars for shinobi and civilians. And separate resteraunts. And hospitals. And schools-just about any public service, really. Use them. Gotcha. . . . . . . . . . .Idiot.

Diplomatic immunity only goes so far. Avoid pissing off shinobi and politicians. Don't be stupidly antagonistic.

The list took up the walk, and before they knew it they were at the Main Gates to Konoha, just as the talkative jounin finished up with "…follow the rules as best you can, and we'll have no trouble."

Waving him off dismissively, Genma passed his papers to the chunin manning the desk, very much aware of the eyes that watched him from the shadows. Shikamaru was looking at the wall absently, running his eyes over the stylized leaf emblem on the giant Gates.

"Papers." Genma reminded, nudging his superior in the ribs gently. Shikamaru gripped his wrist tightly, fingers squeezing the pressure points in the delicate joint until he was just shy of dislocating it. The tokubetsu jounin took it in stride [_his hands had been broken and dislocated so many times one more wouldn't do anything_] and repeated what he had said. "Papers, master."

The painfully tight grip loosened abruptly, and the young jounin rummaged around in his pockets for the requested items. Genma shook out his wrist. The onlooking shinobi watched the little scene play out with a dull bell tinkling in the back of their minds.

It looked-how to put this- _bad._ It looked like the kid wasn't just a hanger-on, it looked like the kid was actually someone of _rank, _who had skills and could use them.

Genma knew better. It was instincts and reflexes and rules that were drilled in their heads and regular paranoia that had been honed in the years that they had been missing-nin. Abuse was for civilians who couldn't protect themselves. Genma knew how to protect himself, how to kill and torture and bleed to the point of almost-dying and if he couldn't protect himself from some brat who was half his age, he didn't really deserve to call myself a shinobi, did he?

There were several reasons why Genma was kept around Shikamaru. One of them was the reason, the fact, that really, for all his intellect and stratagies, the Nara had still been a barely promoted chunin when he had slipped off, and he had had practically _no_ reserves then. Genma was older and experienced and knew tricks and traps and skills and jutsu that his younger roommate might have learned in Konoha and might have not. The poisoner was the shadow weaver's roommate and charge and subordinate and mentor [but only in a few things] and bodyguard and sensei and servant/slave/confidant person all in one. Genma was Shikamaru's touchstone. That was a big one. The other big ones were the sensei and bodyguard and subordinate.

They were partners. Sort of.

"Admited. Your permit allows for a month of temporary residency in Konohagakure, restricted from the Archives and Shinobi HQ." The chunin's bored voice snapped them back to attention.

"Hn." They walked into Konoha. Good Gods, he hadn't been in Konoha in **_years_. **

_Konoha. __**Home. **_

Genma looked around the place, searching out familiar things. _There was the old dango stand, and the pond that Aoba had always liked and that teahouse that made the __best__ mochi ever- but had that shoe store ben there before? And that statue was new too . . . and he was pretty sure that the park had a whole new big patch of empty space where there was once small stand of trees that had been affectionately nicknamed 'the forest' by generation upon generation of kids._

In Doku there was a really nice koi pond- all still and quiet and undisturbed and a _great_ place to calm down after a nightmare, and there was this one koi, almost a gold color, that always _looked_ at Genma when he went there. Which really had nothing at all to do with Konoha, but, for some reason, looking at the hustle-and-bustle of everyday Konoha, Genma was faintly uneasy. Doku was relatively _calm _and _safe _and _protective_. Konoha, as much as he was startled to admit, wasn't home. Not anymore, not really.

Doku? Not _quite_ home yet, but hey, some people said 'home is where the heart is', right? He guessed that that meant that his home was with Shikamaru, the lazy, traitorous, boy-teen of a jounin ranked shinobi.

Because the Nara was his touchstone, and he knew most of his quirks and habits and hell, even his fucking _safewords_, so he had a place.

_Konoha. __**Not**__** home. **_

As they made their way to the hotel that had been reserved for them weeks ago, Genma saw his surroundings with distant eyes, suddenly seeing the edges of danger that were shown to outsiders.

[_coldeyesandassessinglooksandmeaningfulcaressessofweapons_]

By the time they reached their room, Genma was tightly wound up and anxious.

"Ranmaru." Shikamaru said, for absolutely no reason at all. "That will do for a name."

Genma thought a moment, momentarily distracted from his paranoia. [**it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you**]

"Gin."

Shikamaru raised a brow, but remained silent. 'S_ilver? Interesting choice. . . .'_

'Get some rest. We'll be staying here for a while."

"Mm. Night master." Amber eyes closed. The younger shinobi finished setting up their trap system and turned around. Genma was already asleep.

"heh." He smirked fondly at the tokujou. "Night pet."

------

Author's Note:

I now have TWO regular reviewers!

Thank you Maerchen Freund for reviewing this, like, three times! [Seperately, of course, but who cares?]

Okay, so, Shika and Genma- oops, Ranmaru and Gin are now in Konoha! _And it only took three chapters to get there. . . . . heh heh heh. . . _

If you haven't gotten it, Shika killed the last genin team that he was supposed to be testing. *An accident, I SWEAR!* So, he's now in Konoha, on a mission(and trying to hide from his own master until he cools down) and waiting for the next team.

I'm actually not sure if editing the Docs in the Publish tab edits the actual published chapters. For some reason, I get the feeling I'm right. Oh well, I'll figure it out later.

Feel free to tell me if you spot any mistakes!

Cheers!

QuietInsomniac


	10. Dokugakure

In Dokugakure, there are several requirements built in to the graduation process that is unique to the separate academies. The North academy, for instance, has the 'Shadow' process, duing which the shinobi hopefuls must be able to stalk a chunin over a two wek period, predict what they will do in the next two week period, and not get caught.

Dokugakure is divinded into three sections. The civilian section. The merchant section. And the shinobi section.

Each section has at least two academies. The shinobi section alone has four. The merchant section has three general schools, and one specialty school for those who want to open their own shop, or learn how to go big.

In the shinobi sector, the North Academy is specifically for non-combat shinobi who are genin rank and up.

It can get surprisingly strained there, what with the T&I rookies alongside the Healers and Messengers.

The South Academy, on the other hand, is specifically for extra training for the combat shinobi. Assault teams and straight out muscle went there.

West Academy was the actual academy. It accepted classes of 15 twice a year. 9 shinobi graduated a year.

And the East academy wasn't an academy, not really. It was more of a reference. It held the MIA Memorial and the KIA Stone Valley. It had one of the widest entrances to the tunnel system that snaked it's way beneath the village. It guarded the Sealing Room and the Archives and the Experimentation Chambers.

It also wasn't in the East. It was placed squarely in the middle of Dokugakure, surrounded by the clan compounds and the Training Rings and the HQ of numerous sects of the village and layers upon layers of security and seals and guards and blood and squared off by the small, empty plots of land where the ashes of the dead were scattered.

-----

The East Academy always smelled like ashes and charcoal and that stuff that they were always burning in the incense holders, a heady, wooden scent mixed with the smooth aroma of citrus.

-----

For civilian schools, in order to graduate you have to have good grades. In the North Academy, T&I section, you must break a man. Completely.

In the South Academy, you graduate by being able to flatten everybody in your class besides the sensei [extra points if you get them, too] in under three minutes.

Genma studies at the East Academy, spending most of his time in the Labs, sequestered off in the cool, sterile, rooms, hunched over this liquid or that powder, carefully injecting his brightly hued projects into the quivering bodies of rats, or handing his creations over to T&I.

He graduated a month after he started. His accomplishment: a fog colored, airborn poison that attacked the chakra system. The antidote was good for three hours. Immunity was difficult to build up.

One year after he had broken [and he was still insane, then. He had guards, carefully watching his every move, observing his hands as he measured and mixed and poured. They had stopped him committing suicide thirteen times, there in the frigid, harshly clean air of the Chambers] he had finished the misty masterpiece-_thirty seconds and you're dead_- and the harmless looking poison [_it's just fog. __Dead._] was being administered to every active shinobi, and then some.

Hospitals were overrun with the side effects, until Shikamaru dragged Genma into the hospital to look at the charts, and he told them, sweating and panting and struggling to keep his mouth shut, that they had been tainting the deadly substance with the type of needles they had used. That they were lucky not to have had any deaths yet. That they just needed to swap the syringes with a slimmer, less ore filled needle.

Then he had blacked out from the stress the truth drugs had put on his system.

Shikamaru had been chewed out good for '_that little stunt_', but everyone knew that the dark eyed youth had saved them from loosing at least twenty shinobi.

Genma doesn't have any recollection of this. No one's ever told him. He's never asked.

Shikamaru, alternatively, keeps up with the curriculum of the North Academy. He graduated from the ciphers unit after breaking one of the unsolved codes that the Academy kept on hand just for _that_ unit. He graduated from the T&I sect after crushing a man's mind and ripping every piece of information that he could get out of it.

Shikamaru was smart, remember? His jutsu was just a variation on the Yamanaka's Shintenshin and Shinranshin techniques. Not that impressive, according to him. _Very _impressive, according to the examiners.

-----

In order to graduate from the West academy, you need to have mastered the basic chakra skills: kawarimi, bunshin, henge, and being able to focus and control your chakra enough to perform one combat jutsu. Those are the **basics**.

In order to be put into teams, you must have a proving project. Create something.

A poison, a new version of a weapon, a better seal, something new and practical. A variation on a standardized healing jutsu, a cipher, a design for a better uniform, even.

To become a genin, you need to pick your specialty.

-----

That's one reason why Nara Shikamaru went to Dokugakure. There, he could truly expand, learn, challenge himself to his fullest.

He could have selected Strategy as his specialty. He could have spent the rest of his life never setting foot in battle again, staying in the Archives, thinking up new strategies and battle plans and contingencies.

He chose to specialize in Assassination. He willingly embraced the quiet teachings of the darker shinobi. He embedded all he had learned [_killquietlyusegarrotingwirejutsuarebad-toomuchchakracanbesensedmilesaway-keepquietandstillandsilentand__**nevernevernever**__letthemknowyouwerethere_]

in his memory, absorbing it and learning more.

-----

All manner of shinobi arts are open to training: Assassination, Torture and Interrogation, Intelligence, Genjutsu, Frontal Assault, Infiltration, Poison, Weapons, Elemental attacks, Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, _everything_.

The one thing that wasn't there was the Art of Puppetry from Suna. There were original puppetry techniques, mind-controlling seals and jutsu [_courtesy of the unknowing Yamanaka clan_] of course, but the art of manipulating the complex marionettes belonged to the Desert, and the Desert alone.

-----

Shiaka Aki was thirteen, female, and had dark hair topping a evenly tanned, very well toned body. She was training in the Seduction corps, tapped as a raw academy student. She had been told all of the risks and benefits, what she would most likely be giving up for her village and what she could expect to happen on missions.

[_**Rape**__. The unobtrusive woman dressed in well made, casual, flattering clothes with the red ribbon of the Seduction unit around her throat said. __**Torture**__. __Anything__ and __everything__ that can be applied to shinobi, __**plus**__ what can happen to kunoichi. _

_Expect others to take advantage of your sexuality. Expect tortures specially designed for your sex. Expect rape, sweet words, to have your feeling toyed with at the whim of the target. The Seduction Corps send their girls out to sleep with __strange__, __random__ men, for the __**money**__ the village can make. If you think, you can handle being told one day that you're being sent out to have sex with someone that is most likely __**fat**__ and __**disgusting**__ and a __**horrible**__ fuck just for money, __**fine**__. If you think, you can handle being told that your target is a serial killer that likes rough sex, or bondage, or humiliation techniques, or death play, __**fine**__. If you can handle being told that and come back alive, __**knowing**__ that there is every chance that you can be told to do it again, fine. _

_The Seduction Corps do not play at being kunoichi._]

She had been hooked. From the time she had been just a little, she had known that she was a woman, and that as a woman she had duties that couldn't be done by shinobi, and that as a woman, she had a powerful weapon that men just _didn't_ have.

Boobs had the interesting effect of stupefying most adult shinobi into a stunned silence in the middle of a match, allowing her to easily win.

Was it supposed to **matter **that she had just flashed her sensei and effectively half the class? Who cared? Most of them wouldn't graduate anyway, and she had worked in a 'Gentleman's Club' for _years_. Flashy, flamboyant, pretty, and a Blue rank in the Seduction Corps, she was a sultry little minx on the dance floor.

"Graduate Shiaka, assigned to Jounin Nara Shikamaru." Her sensei announced, rubbing his jawline ruefully. "See me after the Exams are over- Nara cooked up a difficult test."

-----

Tsuiro Rin, thirteen-and-a-_month_-thank-you-very-much, black haired, male, graceful physique, and a gymnasts muscles.

Also in the Seduction Corps, he had been tapped as a little, but he had widened his range to see if anything else appealed to him as much. After finding nothing that interested him like Seduction, he applied for an Apprenticeship.

Now, as a Blue ranking member of the Seduction Corps, he was waiting for his name to be called.

"Tsuiro RIn!"

He strode into the small arena used for Graduation tests, projecting an air of calm around him. A sensei that he had never seen before was waiting for him, hands in a seal.

And then there were _walls that were __**tooclose**__ and pressing darkness on all sides and __**quietquietquiet**__ from inside while yellsandbellowsandscreams tore the __**toosmall**__ box from the outside. _

_Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop and the walls were closing in and he was going to __**die, **__he __**knew**__ it, in the __**toosmall**__ cube of compressing nothingness and he was never gonna graduate because the air was going, even now, and soon he wasn't gonna have enough air to __**breathe**__-_

"_KAI!"_

The instructor watched as the slight blue tinge that had been creeping up his face receded, as he panted, braced on his knees to recover from the genjutstu.

"Two minutes, three seconds. Not bad. Graduate Tsuiro, assigned to Jounin Nara Shikamaru. Meet your sensei after the Exams-Nara made up a little something that you'll need help with."

-----

Yashika Hira was thirteen, silver haired, male, and had a small, lean body-_it was __**not**__ unhealthily skinny_-and lithe muscles and movements. He had been likened to a feral kitten many _many_ times. He hated it.

He was not part of the Seduction corps as one of their girls. He was a Controller. His job was to keep his girl happy and stable and loyal and to ride out the breakdowns and let them cry on him and let them beat him up. That was his job.

All this and more ran through his mind as he gazed at his examining sensei, listening to his Exam requirements.

"Torture me." The man stated bluntly, handing him a card. _Blink. Blink. __**Say what?! **_The card read 'what card I have memorized.'

"I am a threat to your charge. Your charge has recently had a mental breakdown. I caused it. Your charge is in no shape to fight if you can help it, and if your charge sees me she will break again. I have information that your girl was sent to retrieve. Your charge never got to me. You have me. Get the information." The chunin recited tonelessly.

_Right. Because Controllers have to be able to finish the job if their girl cant do it._

"Limits?" Hira asked, voice bland, smooth, controlled. The instructor approved.

"Nothing severely hampering-which is longer than a week to heal. Nothing extreme-which means whips, chains, sexual assult, and excessive injuries to a portion of the body, are out."

Nothing too limiting, than.

Hira lunged, quickly, quietly, not waiting for the glimpse of surprise as it flashes over the instrutor's face. He tacklesdthe chunin, pinned him to a chair as shinobi wire, infused with sparking chakra wove around the man, securing him to the chair. Removed his weight as the wire wound tightly around the fingers, tying them back to back against each other.

Hira stood in front of the restrained shinobi, wordlessly, a pair of senbon ready in his hands. "What card did you have?"

The instructor stayed stubbornly silent. Hira eased one of the needles into a nerve cluster to accentuate the pain, and cut a swirling, sharp symbol into the chunin's arm with the other. He didn't react at the hiss of pain.

"What card did you have?" he repeated, channeling a touch of his _soothingburning _chakra into the mark. The chunin stiffened with a barely perceptible wince.

Hira urged more chakra into the cuts. The examiner is sweating now.

"What card did you have?" the mixture of the truth seal on his arm and the pain the senbon was causing him and the layered chakra in his voice decided the examiner.

"Not bad." He said. "Three of Jacks." The mark on his arm didn't glow. Hira was faintly disappointed and channeled his chakra again, the wire unknotting itself and flying back to his outstretched hands, landing in a neat coil.

The chunin stood up., stretching. "Good enough to break most genin, right there. If you'd gone on, I bet you could have demonstrated skills that could have broken chunin, but all we really needed to know was that you could to it. Graduate Yashika, assigned to Jounin Nara Shikamaru. Meet with your sensei after the Exams are over, you'll need help on this one."

-----

In Konoha, Genma was reading the evaluation scrolls of the Graduates that were being tested by Shikamaru.

'_Two from the Seduction Corps and a Controller, huh?_' he smirked. _'this'll be interesting. Two 'girls' for one Controller. . . . heh._'

Shikamaru was curled up on the floor, sleeping in the darkest corner he could find, cocooned in blankets. He growled out a soft field code in his sleep. Genma blinked, looking at him, and snorted softly, eyes a soft amber.

He whistled and chirped back, and Shikamaru curled tighter, back to the wall, trusting the older man to keep watch.

-----------

Author's Note:

Hey, sorry it's later than usual. Never claimed that I was on a schedule, or anything . . .

Anyway, we meet three new characters, all OC's if you're wondering. I'm actually trying to give them depth, and I hope they'll appear in the actual story as more than just background characters. They're probably gonna be downright disturbing. . .

Yes, MF, you can review after every installment. In fact, I would LOVE for you to do that. Thanks! *feeling very happy!*

Lils, still a faithful reviewer- *sniff* **thanks!**

So, um, if you hadn't guessed, Dokugakure's field code is in whistles, hand signals, chirps, and growls. Just because I like making those noises.

If you have any ideas, feel free to let me know!

Oh, and Raidou and a Flashback will be coming soon! *hinthinthint*

Cheers!

QuietInsomniac


	11. Bonding

"Your sensei is Nara Shikamaru. Jounin rank, defect from Konohagakure. Recruited by his Master-_the_ Master. A master. Trained in the North Academy. Ciphers. Assassination. A genius. If he wants you dead, expect to die."

The three Graduates listened intently at the rundown of their new sensei.

"In the tradition of Konoha, he's decided to make you three go through a secondary test. Your test is to draw blood from him in combat, using a plan that involves all three of you."

Aki furrowed her brow, straightening it out hurriedly as she thought. "Aren't Konoha's secondary tests usually geared toward teamwork?" she asked.

Her sensei smirked nastily at them. "We've beaten it into your heads by now, _graduate_." His tone made it clear that if she didn't understand the concept of teamwork by now, she was a complete and utter idiot. "Nara trusts that. He doesn't need to see your teamwork skills; he needs to see you combat skills. He's not in the village, so you'd better pack. If you don't succeed in passing his test in a month, you automatically fail."

Hira narrowed his cobalt eyes thoughtfully. "Is that the only reason we were sent here? To be told that we had a secondary assessment and that Nara-sensei was out of the village?"

His Academy sensei dropped his smirk, staring into his student's eyes seriously. "No. A warning was deemed necessary. This is the second time Nara was given a team to train. They managed to track him down. They managed to start ambushing him. They didn't make it any further than that."

Rin leaned back in his chair. "What happened to them?" he wanted to know, morbidly curious.

His sensei shrugged. "Eviscerated. I think. Maybe. Or beheaded. Either way, they died. Messily."

The three Graduates shared a glance. _Great. _Their looks said. _Just great_.

The man looked up at them from his desk. His eyes narrowed. "What are you waiting for? The clock is ticking, brats! Dismissed!"

Startled, they bowed and turned to each other. "Meet at the Main Gate in half an hour. Pack light, but enough for a week of clothing. I've got meds. Aki, rations? Rin that'll leave you with extras. Anyone mind?" Hira looked around at his teammate's faces. They both looked agreeable. He nodded sharply, more to himself than to them.

"Right." He muttered. Closing his eyes in concentration, he formed a half-seal and vanished.

---

They each packed a spare outfit, weapons, any personal quirks, and what they had been assigned. Meeting up at the agreed spot, they handed out their supplies to each other and thought out a plan.

"Alright." Rin said confidently. "Nara-sensei's not in the village. He's dangerous."

"Yeah, thanks, we got _that_ much." Aki snapped at him.

"Quiet." Hira commanded.

"Who died and made _you_ boss?" Rin asked belligerently. Aki hefted her pack in one hand, judging the weight.

"No one." Hira responded. Aki walked over to the Guard's booth, where the stationed shinobi were watching the quarrel in amusement.

"Exactly. You ain't the squad leader, so don't act like you are." he started heatedly.

Aki rolled her eyes at their argument and leaned forward to talk with one of the Guards.

Behind her, Rin was calming down. "We're a team right now, an' we're all equals too, so don't be actin' like you're better 'n us, got it?"

"Alright." Hira nodded at him calmly, eyes belying his wariness.

Aki strode over to the boys and hoisted her pack onto her back. "Nara-sensei left Doku three days ago, heading towards Konohagakure for a mission. Kira-sempai said that it was a high profile messenger run, so Nara-sensei should be there by now."

The boys snapped to, all business now as they picked up their own bags. "Konoha?" Rin said contemplatively.

"Apparently."

The three Graduates checked their bags and handed their papers over to the Guards.

"Good luck Graduates." One of the Guards spoke up, his eyes gleaming with amusement.

"T-thank you, Guardsman-san." Hira said, surprised at the gesture. The man stamped the papers and handed them a scroll of official approval. The team was turning to leave, when the Guard stopped them.

"Just a word of advice: wear your tags and make sure you have your papers at all times. And I hope that one of you has a map."

Aki shook her head in slight shame. The man blinked. "Right, then here you go." He scribbled a few notes on the paper and circled a large spot in the north.

"That's Konohagakure." His partner chipped in. "Avoid the noted spots, there are shinobi unfriendly villages there."

"Thanks."

The Guards looked at them warily. "You sure you know what you're doin'?" One asked.

"Yeah." Rin nodded, flushing slightly. 'Is it _that_ obvious that we're green?'

The guardsmen looked at each other. "Lay out your game plan for us- we need it anyway, and our Master would kill us if we let newbie Graduates die before they even meet their sensei." One suggested kindly.

"A-alright." Rin said, surprised. He hadn't known about _this_ part of signing out of the village. "We're planning on going to Konoha, finding Nara-sensei and ambushing him."

Blink. Blink. "_That's __**it**_?!" One of the Guards yelped. His partner made a choking sound. _That_ was their plan for passing the secondary test of one of the _most _dangerous and unstable jounin in the village? If that wasn't a joke, they were gonna **die** in three seconds flat.

"Uh, yeah." Aki said, confused. Their sensei would go easy on them, right?

The Guards traded an exasperated look. "Alright Graduates, I'm going to read out a checklist, and if you don't have what's on the list, you're gonna haul your ass back to your hole until you have it."

"Money."

The children exchanged questioning looks. The Guard shook his head. "Scat." Hira ran off.

"Beacons." "Uhm. . ."

"Get moving." Aki bolted.

"Scrolls for recording, sealing, reports?" Rin flushed. The other Guard ran his palm over his face. "This is gonna be a _long_ day." He moaned.

---

"Do you maggots even have your fuckin' _**papers**_?!?!?" the man bellowed at last. The genin brightened up and whipped out their papers. "Good. Leave your packs the way they are, bring them home, and leave tomorrow."

As the new Graduates left the Gate, their faces were burning.

"You're ready to go. Sign here."

And they were off, the Guards looking after them with a mixture of amusement and worry on their faces. "D'you think they'll make it?" One asked the other. "It _is_ Him and his Pet that we're talking about."

"Shhh!" his partner shushed him quickly, glancing about nervously. "Don't call Him His Pet! Remember what happened to Ichi?"

"Yeah." The Guard snorted. "Equals my ass. Nara's his Master. Not equals, not in rank, not in status, not in age or experience. _Equals._" He spat in the dirt.

His fellow shook his head and looked up, shading his eyes against the glare of the rising sun, until he wasn't able to see the Graduates anymore. "Shut up, Guardian."

"Hai, hai.. " He trailed off. "Pups like that," he said, "will burn fast and bright and won't last long enough to grow into real shinobi. They may live long, and they may pass their art down, but they won't ever be blooded as we were."

"And that's good, isn't it."

"Yeah. That's good."

---

Genma wanted to fidget, but he _couldn't_ because he was in the middle of negotiating a trade deal between a relatively large village in Hi no Kuni and Dokugakure. Or, rather, _Shikamaru_ was negotiating it, and Genma was acting as his bodyguard.

"Sign here, and here, and have your witness sign here." Genma blinked back into time at the moment his superior was cinching the deal. Good for him.

Could those brats be **any** slower? There was only so much time that they had, after all. And _then_. . . .Genma's lips curled ferally behind the facemask Shikamaru had demanded that he wear during the time they were in Konoha. The brats would be **his**! He would have fun with them, _oh yes_; he was going to have fun.

---

Night fell in the dusky bogs of Swamp Country as three small figures landed neatly on a solid piece of ground. Aki set down her pack with a small groan as Hira flopped down, exaggeratedly tired. Rin rolled his shoulders, looking at his teammates uncomfortably.

"Now what?" He asked. No one knew.

"I guess we set up camp." Aki shrugged. Hira brightened up. Setting up camp was something that he could do.

"Think we can risk a fire?" Rin asked cynically. Hira peered upwards, gazing at the thickly fogged sky.

"Yeah, we should be able to." He answered. "Hunting or rat bars? I vote hunt."

Aki snorted. "Ration bars are disgusting. Hunt." Rin nodded his agreement.

"I'll do it." The boy volunteered, getting up and slinking away. The other two Graduates watched him leave silently.

"I'll take the fire." Hira said. "I guess that leaves me with water." Aki left as Hira started to clear the ground.

---

With a dying fire's coals in front of them, a stomach full of roasted bird and a lack of anything else to say, the Graduates started talking about themselvs and their skills.

"Tsuiro Rin. Blue Ranked Seduction Corps. Third generation shinobi. Claustrophobic."

"Yashika Hira. Controller Operative in the Seduction Corps. Also a third generation shinobi. My proving project was vocally focused genjutsu."

"Shiaka Aki. Blue Ranking member of the Seduction Corps. Second-generation shinobi. Been a dancer at the Blue since I was twelve."

"A controller, huh?" Rin stated, rather than asked.

"Yeah." Hira didn't look up.

Aki watched it play out.

"What's your job description?"

The smaller boy smirked weakly. "I fuck you if you need it. You fuck me if you need it. You get to cry and slobber all over me and beat me up, too, if it comes to that. I'm supposed to keep my girls safe and happy and stable."

Rin puffed up, outraged. "Are you calling me a **girl**?!?!" he squawked indignantly. Aki couldn't help but snicker at Hira's frantic attempts to assure the bigger boy that he was manly through and through.

They went to sleep quietly, obediently changing shifts every four hours, looking at the softly shining moon, breathing in the cool, sweet, medicinal air of the marshes and reflecting on their teammates. _Family_. Whispered the marsh.

------

Author's Note:

Heya!

So. . . not much happened in this chapter. You got the definition of a Controller-which I'm pretty sure I already gave you. You got a bit more of the team, and hopefully, a bit more of their personality. Genma made a very brief appearance, with Shikamaru in the background. A bit of angsty/introspective dialog with the Guardians [who are **not** the 12 Guardians, by the way].

And team 4 is on it's way! Yes. That is their team number.

I _promise, _Raidou will be in one of the next three chapters. I think he'll show up sometime in chapter 13.

Meh.

This will turn Dark again. Soon. Hopefully. I've been reading too much angst. I need to read Gleam again.

Anyways, Hope you liked it! As always, feel free to review and critique.

This chapter is dedicated to JBMcDragon, an **awesome** writer who you should really check out. She writes crack- the _most_ adorable stuff I have ever seen! [coughcoughBathroomMirrorcoughcough]. *sigh* I wish I could write as well as her.

On a Side Note: I have recently realized that for this entire fic, I have not posted a disclaimer.

**I do NOT OWN NARUTO. I haver have. I never will. Dokugakure is Mine. Aki, Hira, and Rin- are MINE. If you want to use them, PM me. This disclaimer applies for the entire fic.**

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


	12. Prisoner

[They ran and ran and ranandranandranandran until their feet were bloody shreds and their muscles were screaming tired but locked into the breakneck pace and their lungs were fireyhot pain and exhaustion.]

Jounin were _better_ than this, damnit! They could keep up running like this for _days_. But they had already been running for days, almost a week, and they were tired and weary and so **hungry** that they would probably die in the next twelve hours if they didn't get any nutrition in them.

Dehydration sucked, mused the man as he stumbled for the umpteenth time, staggering himself upright on jelly-legs and a _too-heavy_ torso and a gnawing, searing pain in his stomach and muscles that wanted to keep running, because that was all they had been doing for the past few days.

And his uniform was stained to the point that it wasn't even worth being cleaned because he would _never_ get the stench out of it, and it was creased and ripped and crusted with dirt and blood. Sweat had gathered and stiffened the fabric into the discolored, reeking remains of what was once a perfectly useable flak jacket. He didn't even want to get started on the rest of his clothes.

His team had been whittled down from the original five members to a mere two, and Saki had been limping before they had started to run, and she had been nursing a nasty slice across her side for several days. It was starting to look infected, and they didn't have any med supplies with them [the **bastards** had taken them all] and they still had at least five more days of running top speed to get to Konoha.

They were going to die, slowly and painfully, wasting away in the searing sun in the plains of Marsh and Suna.

And then _they_ came, hissing at each other, even as they carefully checked him and Saki over.

And he lost consciousness and when he woke up, Saki was gone.

--------

"Great, now we have **more** people to look after." Rin groaned.

"Look at it this way Rin, now we have an actual reason to go to Konoha." Aki told him, winding bandages around a freshly cleaned cut on the man's leg professionally.

Hira hummed noncommittally. He didn't really care one way or the other; they could afford to keep the shinobi with them, after all.

The female shinobi had died during the night, and they had stripped the body and scavenged anything useful and left her in the trees, deciding to let the man say his goodbyes.

--------

With melted dogtags and the remains of a Konoha style jounin vest and three pairs of dogtags already around the man's wrists with a new one waiting to be added, and with his limbs swathed in bandages, Yamashiro Aoba looked, quite frankly, pathetic.

And then he woke up with a snarl on his face and large hands already reaching for Aki's throat with _barelythere_ chakra flickering wildly as he struggled to summon enough for a jutsu. Rin was moving at the first sign of movement, a thin paper slip in his hands and rage in his dark eyes.

Aki _twisted_ in an impossible movement that must have hurt like a _bitch_ as Hira lunged for her [his **teammate**] and hauled her to a distance he deemed safe.

And it was all over in a split second, the man's chakra forcefully tamped down with the tag that was placed on the back of his neck and his body slumping to the ground, courtesy of a well-placed blow to his temple.

The wind rustled through the long, long grass as the Graduates froze, adrenaline pumping through their veins. Aoba didn't move.

"_Bastard_." Rin cursed, glaring at the prone form and rising from the crouch he had landed in. "You sure you wanna keep him?"

'_Whoa whoa whoa whoa, wait a sec, when had __**he**__ become the leader?'_ and then Hira looked at Aki, Aki who was usually so composed and flamboyant and happy. Aki, who was shivering in his arms, eyes shut, murmuring words too low to catch as her fingers spasmed in aborted seals.

He stifled the impulse to incinerate the helpless shinobi on the spot.

"We need him." Hira said eventually, dark eyes seething at the thought. "For now."

_Implied permission then_. Rin nodded sharply, temper abated for the moment. Hira shifted Aki over to Rin and twisted shinobi wire tightly [dangerously tightly] around the man's wrists and fingers, looping it around his neck and finishing off the bonds with a particularly nasty slipknot and another seal.

"You alright Aki?" Rin asked softly, fingers rubbing soothingly on her back. Aki froze for a second- and Hira was _there_, his hands full of shuriken and a jutsu on his lips-and took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Yeah. I'm-" she took another breath, scrubbing tears away almost angrily. "I'm fine." The girl breathed out in a short, sharp note that _whooshed_ through her nose and nodded determinedly to herself. Her teammates traded unconvinced looks over her head.

"Uh-huh." Hira relied on his training and decided that Aki could stand to be psychoanalyzed. Besides, they needed to learn more about each other.

"You froze." He said bluntly.

"We can't afford that, Aki." Rin added in. "We're almost in enemy territory as it is. We're going to be infiltrating it, and if you're freezing on us. . ."

"I **know** that." She flared.

"Obviously, you don't. Why'd you freeze?" Hira pressed. Aki kept her mouth shut mutinously. Her Controller held back a sigh. This was his _first_ assignment, damnit! Why couldn't they have given him **one** girl, like other Controllers?!

"If it's something that you don't want him to hear, you can tell me." Rin offered, blatantly ignoring the poisonous glare that the aforementioned 'him' shot his way.

"Look, why don't we shelve this topic for right now and start moving. We need to gain ground and we can always talk about this over food." Aki suggested.

They weren't fooled by her rather obvious ploy, but she had a point. They _were_ losing daylight by messing around like this.

"Fine." Hira gave in against logic. "Who's gonna take the guy?"

"I will." Rin volunteered. "We'll switch off, and Hira, you're after me."

The small boy blinked, and then looked doubtfully at his slender frame, and then at the 120+ pound body beside him.

Aki took off, Rin following her. "Hoi! You comin' or not boss-man?!"

Hira choked, his very core horrified at the nickname, and launched himself into the air, leaping through the grass.

-------

Aoba woke up again, eyes crusted shut, mouth painfully dry and almost dead. Rin noticed first. "'e's up." He announced, poking the fire with a kunai, and leaving it in the flames.

Aoba rasped pitifully, and then he was _drowningchokingfloundering_ in a canteen as water was poured into his open mouth.

"Hira!" a low, but undoubtedly feminine voice reprimanded. The hands wrenching his head back released him and the canteen was drawn away. He swallowed what he could and held his shivering muscles still. He was gonna _cramp_ in the morning.

"What?" a boy demanded brusquely.

"'s not good manners to do that to a guest Hira." Another boy said calmly, a slight lilting accent to his voice. _Doesn't sound like one that I've ever heard of_, Aoba mused as he controlled his breathing to a steady, even pace. Immediately the attention of his three captors was directed onto him.

"Now what?" the first boy-_Hira_- questioned.

"Feed him." The girl ordered. "He's gonna keel over in the next few hours if he doesn't get food in him soon."

"Yes Ma." The accented boy said in a sing-song voice.

Rustling sounds were all that Aoba was able to hear over the wind.

"Open." The boy's voice came from in front [_tooclosetooclose he should have known that the kid was there_] and Aoba jerked his head away _fast_. "What'sa matter man?" the kids voice held a taunting ring to it.

Aoba killed the instinct that told him to **smash** the little brat's head to a pulp.

"Idiot." The girl sighed. "Here." She waved something under his nose and it smelled so _good_ and he was _so__** hungry**_.

Aoba ate, his hiate-ate pulled over his eyes and his hands tied and twisted behind his back with what felt like metal-cored hempwire connected to his neck.

"Your teammate died, by the way." Hira said carelessly. Aoba froze, heart dropping. The wind rustled through the grass as a raven cawed in the distance. "her dogtags are around your wrist, and her hiate-ate is in your vest."

"Doesn't matter anyhow, yeah?" the nameless kid said callously. "Eat."

Aoba ate mechanically, mind racing for details. Saki was dead. He was restrained in someone else's hands. He didn't know what their alliance was. Saki was dead. No weapons. Barely any chakra. Saki was dead. The mission was a failure.

"We're not going to kill ya." The girl said flatly. "we need you to get into Konoha."

Determination flared up and the jounin in him dug in his heels. He was _not _going to help enemies infiltrate his home.

He never saw the blow coming.

-------

"A week's gone by." Genma said quietly, slinking along the shadowed rooftops. Shikamaru remained still, his crouched form motionless as his fathomless eyes tracked invisible movements.

"Think they'll make it?" No need to say who 'they' were.

"Maybe."

"Only three more weeks left, eh?" the tokujou pressed.

"You've read their files." Shikamaru murmured. "What do _you_ think?"

Genma leaned against the bricked wall, fingers still as death. "They seem good. Might not be good enough to make it though."

"We can only hope." the youth smiled grimly and vanished, his teammate disappearing a moment later.

Wind blew across the abandoned rooftop, disturbing the dead and browned leaves that littered the ground.

-------

Author's Note:

Right. Well, here's the next chapter. And here comes yet a_nother_ character! Don't worry, he won't be here for long. A bit of creepy all-knowing contemplation at the end, and we have reached a **cliffhanger**, people!

*sniff* I'm so proud.

As always, feel free to critique and tell me what worked and what didn't. Raidou _will_ be in the next chapter, Lils. Somehow. It's probably going to end up being a flashback. Meh.

A bit late and a bit shorter than the last few, but I'm sure you can handle it. This one just _*_didn't* want to cooperate with me.

Dedicated to: Crowlows19, an awesome Alex Rider author, who wrote: Unorthodox, The Best Friends, Jaded Little Brat and it's sequel Jaded Little Freloader, and other stuff.

Hope you guys like it!

Cheers,

QuietInsomniac


	13. Flashback

It was raining. A light _pitterpatter_ on the rooftops, rippling in the puddles and creating a steady, depressing atmosphere in Konoha.

Namiashi Raidou though it fitting.

It was three years to the day that Genma had died. _Three years already. . ._

Three years to the day that he had stumbled home from a mission and received a cool, cream-colored envelope, sealed with the Hokage's stamp.

Three years to the day that he had opened an official document that stated, in no uncertain terms, that the center of his universe was missing, presumed dead.

Three years to the day that he had lost it, storming into the Hokage's office and _lunging_ at the man inside, _demanding_ that he _take it __**back! **__**Take it **__**back**__** Goddamn it!**_

Because Genma wasn't dead, there was _no way_ that he could be dead.

It was just yesterday that he had promised to come back and just yesterday that Genma had kissed him and had flashed a beaming grin his way, warm honey eyes laughing.

Three years ago, Genma had died and Raidou had been sedated to unconsiousness and had woken up in the Rehabilitation Clinic, chakra restraints cold on his wrists and _whitewhitewhite_ all around.

It had taken him three months to get over Genma's death. Even then, he had been closely monitored for mission suicide, emotional instability, and hints of _danger_.

And even now, Raidou was fresh and stinging from the pain. Still feeling empty from the hole that Genma had left in him.

The big jounin knelt in the mud in front of the Memorial Stone, uncaring of his yukata. His head fell back, exposing his scarred face to the heavens.

_Genma, you bastard. You weren't supposed to die before me._

It had all started with that mission.

"Shiranui Genma, Tokubetsu Jounin, 010203?" Both Genma and Raidou looked at the speaker. The youth blinked lazily at them "Which one is it?" he asked.

Genma swiveled around in his stool, lounging across the counter behind him. "That'd be me." He smirked, heavy lidded eyes flicing over the kid's scrawny form asessingly. Raidou took the opportunity to steal a glance at Genma's cards, whistling innocently when the man shot him a _look_.

The kid yawned. "Mission." He handed the tokujou a scroll, edged in the blue that symbolized an specialized solo.

'When's it start?" Genma asked absently, already opening the scroll.

"No idea." The kid vanished.

Honeyed eyes narrowed as they scanned the paper. "What's up?" Raidou asked, concerned.

"Nothing." Genma muttered, standing up and stashing the scroll in his hip pouch. "Gotta go, Rai-chan. I should be done in a week, if I'm not done by two, buy me some sake, will ya?"

Raidou stood up, the card game forgotten. "You'll be careful, right?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Genma." The older man made sure that his smaller friend was looking at him. "You'll be careful, right?"

Genma blinked innocently. "No danger, but it just could be a hoax mission. That was the Nara kid, right? The one that made chunin a while back?"

Raidou shrugged. "'Dunno, but he probably is. Why?"

Genma shook his head. "Forget it. See ya." He vanished, leaving his friend to pick up the cards.

And then Raidou had been sent out on a mission and Genma had disappeared.

Genma's last mission was classified, officially. Raidou pulled a few favors and blackmailed a couple of people, and yanked several strings. The best that he could do was find out that Genma's mission had to do with the Nara kid [also missing, and wasn't that convenient?] and they had gone on the mission together. Two days later they were MIA. Six months later, they were deemed KIA.

Aoba had told him that Genma had brushed past him and muttered something about a mission and showing someone the ropes. _He sounded pissed, too_. He had said.

Kakashi had no information. Gai had been out on a mission. Kurenai only knew what Asuma had told her, and that wasn't much.

Asuma was Raidou's best bet of finding information, and that was what had brought him knocking on the jounin's door at three in the morning.

The door slammed open, the stocky jounin behind it pissed off and tired. "What?!" He snapped, fingers twitching.

_Just give me a reason_, his body language told Raidou. _I'm tired and I've been on a mission and all I want to do is __**sleep**_.

Raidou backed off.

"I'll come by later, then." He said tactfully, even though inside all he wanted to do was curse and flail and _rage_ at his fellow because **Genma was gone** and he wasn't _supposed_ to be gone.

Genma was supposed to live forever and they were going to retire and crack jokes at the new generations and smoke pipe tobacco like the Old Man had.

In the morning, things looked bleaker than ever. "Sorry," Asuma had said regretfully. "The only thing that I know is that Genma was on some on-going, internal mission with Shika. He missed two team meeting because of it, and the last time I saw him, he was on his hill, looking really worried."

Nothing after that. Not the slightest hint of a clue as to what happened to Raidou's lover. Nothing.

The rain beat down on Raidou's unprotected head, streaming down his back and dripping off his face. "'m _not_ crying." He muttered rebelliously to himself, even as he felt tears seep out of his tightly closed eyes.

-----

On the border of Sand and Konoha [days later and they had passed through another country] four figures rested.

Aoba was still bound, and his chakra still sealed, but he was running by himself, now.

_You run,_ Rin had told him, eyes glittering dangerously, _and you die. _ Slim fingers had dangled a seal in front of his face. _This is connected to the collar that's now around you neck_. Aoba's fingers had automatically reached up to verify that statement. Cool metal met his touch. _You run, we blow your head off. _

Aoba didn't run.

-----

"Aki." Hira woke her up, jumping back at the first sign of movement.

"What?" She gritted out, her shift had _just_ ended and she wanted to _sleep_, by the Serpent, was that too much to ask?! Apparently, it was.

"We need ta talk." Rin said seriously, appearing out of the darkness like a wraith. Hira glared at the taller boy.

"Chill, boss-man!" Rin laughed silently. "Shadow's snoozin' like Dream."

"Who's Shadow?" Aki asked fuzzily. "An' what's Dream?"

"The guy Hira picked up. And Dreampowder. Can't tell me that you've never heard of that." Rin looked up at his teammates un-amused faces. "What?" he defended himself. "He needs a name, and his 'tags are all melted!"

Hira shook his head with a sigh. "Whatever." He grumbled. "Anyway, Aki, we need to talk about you freezing."

"No, no we really don't." She said weakly.

"Yeah, yeah we really do." Rin settled in by her side. "Sorry sweetheart, liabilities are dangerous."

"I'm **not** a fucking _liability_!" Aki snapped at him, hating the comfort laced in his tone, knowing _exactly_ where the boy had learned it [they had all learned it] and what that tone was for [_screaming shinobi in whitewhitewhite rooms_].

"Then why'd you freeze?" Hira asked gently. Aki's eyes narrowed and she stayed stubbornly silent.

"Cummon, Aki. We won't tell." Rin coaxed.

"Yeah, we really won't. You're our teammate now, Aki, and if you say that you don't want us talking, I won't talk."

Twenty minutes later, Aki cracked.

"It was the first mission I'd ever been on." She told them, blanking herself off from the words.

Hira startled. "First? But we only just Graduated-" Rin's elbow cut him off. _Explainations later_. His eyes commanded.

"Find a person, seduce and leave." She took a breath. "Things didn't go according to plan." Her gaze went dreamy. Her teammates inhaled sharply. _Not going according to plan_ was a **bad** phrase to be uttering.

"Turns out that my mark knew that I was following him, and set a rusher on my trail. Big brute, arms like steel. Bastard rushed me like Shadow did. All sudden-like, just as I was leaving. Just-" she gestured rather meaninglessly with her hands.

Rin's eyes narrowed on his teammate's face. "Didja-" he stopped himself. _He'd_ grown up on the streets. Aki hadn't.

"No."

"Was it a flashback?" Hira questioned gently.

"No. It was just the _grabbing_ that did it. I'm getting therapy-the Dollrooms are handling it."

"Alright." Rin nodded. Hira wasn't so accepting.

"Medications?"

"None."

"Just therapy?"

"Yes."

"That's it?" his voice was disbelieving. Rin thwapped him around the head.

"Ah, shaddup boss-man." He ordered amicably, his light tone belying the hint of _danger_ underneath. "She's explained it all, nice and neat, why d'you need sommat more?" _Leave her alone_ the undertone growled.

Hira stopped.

Rin threw him a bone. "It's a Corps thing." _That explained it all_.

-----

"Less than three weeks left." Shikamaru mused to himself. Genma was off prowling the streets of dimly-lit Konoha, in the pouring rain. "Now, the big question." Crows cawed in the distance.

"Will they make it?" the rain beat the pavement as the jounin crossed over to the window and looked over the sprawling city. "Doubtful." A lightly tanned nose wrinkled. _How_ could Genma _like_ the rain?

"But then again. . . " Shikamaru trailed off as he saw the flicker of shadow and felt the _warmsteadysoothingpowerful_ chakra presence of Genma behind him. "There are always exceptions, hm?"

Genma blinked catlike eyes at his roommate, soaked hair in a scraggly ponytail, uniform dripping slowly onto the tile floor. "Do I _want_ to know?" He asked the air dramatically, slipping around the younger man to change his clothes.

"No, no I don't believe I do." The jounin poked his head around his doorway, looking towards the silent figure beside the windows.

_Tick-tock, brats, tick-tock._

_-----_

Author's Note:

Yo. So, a bit short, a bit late. Ok, so it's a lot late, but I haven't been able to write lately. I was bunking at a friend's house for the past week or so, so I haven't gotten much of a chance to write.

Anyway: More interaction, Aki reveals the disaster that was her first mission, Rin shows that he can care, Hira does his duty and gets put in the doghouse.

Aoba just sleeps. And yet More angsty time countdowns at the end of the chapter.

In case you didn't get the Genma/Raidou timeline, here you go:

Genma took the mission.

Raidou went off on his own mission.

Raidou comes back a day later. Genma isn't listed as MIA yet.

Raidou leaves for another mission. He comes back 6 months later. He gets the notice of KIA.

Raidou spends 3 months in a Rehab Clinic.

TimeSkip: And now we're three years after Genma is declared KIA.

I think I just severely fucked up my Genma timeline, so I'll have to write it all out somewhere. . .meh.

This chapter is dedicated to: PaBurke, a very awesome author that writes BtVS fics.

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


	14. Showdown

Shikamaru wandered the streets of Konoha. There was nothing much to see, everyone having been driven inside by the persisting rain, and those few people who were outside were either shinobi or civilians, rushing home. The young Nara liked it.

Konoha was so _noisy_. Hustle and bustle and not a moments peace. Unlike the inhabitants of Doku, Konoha's didn't seem to know the meaning of the word 'quiet'. Headaches were frequent, expecially with the added stress of their cover missions, Genma's warning signs showing themselves in subtle ways, the Hokage and her loyal ANBU breathing down their necks, the scheduled meeting in a few days and the incoming arrival of 'reinforcements' form Doku due to arrive any day now.

Of course, even if most shinobi could tell off the bat that he was a shinobi, the civvies couldn't. All they knew was that shinobi wore a hiate-ate, and his wasn't anywhere in sight. Shikamaru _tsk_ed at their observational skills, but hey, civilians. What else could you expect?

He ambled along his old haunts carelessly, sharp eyes half-closed and hands stuck in his pockets.

Nobody noticed him.

Pathetic.

And then a slight tug at his senses occupied his attention, just a slight hint of _panic_ in his chakra bond to Genma.

The Nara vanished immedietly, his shadows following him a scant second later.

-----

Of all the fucking things that could have happened. He had bushed aside some vendor's curtain to see if his roommate was eating there [he had mysteriously _vanished_ off of the streets, much to Genma's annoyance] and was greeted with the collarbone of a Konoha shinobi. A very familiar shinobi, actually, the distinctive scar that ran down the neck from the left cheek just at eye height.

Genma _knew_ that scar. He knew the rough voice that was apologizing automatically. He knew the brown eyes that were ringed with stress and fatigue and that were currently staring at him. He knew that person. He knew Namiashi Raidou almost better than he knew himself.

His thoughts clashed over themselves as he stared at the _solidreal_ chest in front of him.

Instinctively, Genma flared the slightest hint of _chakrapanic_ down his bond to Shikamaru, ducking his head and stepping to the side in a feeble attempt to camoflauge the hiate-ate wrapped around his head. Too late.

The jounin's eyes narrowed, and Genma's heart just about broke at the sudden coolness in the gaze directed towards him.

_Poof_.

Right on cue, a slight figure appeared outside the food stall, hands hovering near hi hip pouch and dark eyes snapping _danger_ to anyone who he happened to see.

-----

Shikamaru was seething. _Genma was his. _ _His to protect and help and guide and if someone [__**bastard**__] was bothering Genma to the point of alerting him it meant that he wasn't doing his job properly._

He wouldn't allow it.

Genma had chosen _him_ for his Master, _him_ out of all of the other jounin out there. And maybe Shikamaru was being over possessive and jealous but fuck if he didn't have a good reason to be.

Shikamaru was responsible for the way that Genma was. _All broken and shattered and skittish, even now._

And Shikamaru knew it. He took responsibility, and watched over the older of their duo inconspicuously.

When the slender [_weak__**deceptive**__skinny__**strong**__young__**experiencedtoosoon**__slow__**genius**__] _body rematerialized next to a food stand where Genma was staring blankly at a taller man his fingers were just a hairs breadth away from his weapons and on a very fine trigger.

-----

"Gin." His voice snapped an order, and the tokujou blurred away from the man. Shikamaru could feel the slight _fear_ and the _relief_ that colored their bond cool yellow and soothing blue.

The man looked at them, assessing, even as Shikamaru imprinted his face into his memory.

A low whistle, barely a breath of air that lilted once and was silent threaded it's way though the bustle of the street behind them. The young assassin twisted his hands in the universal scout signs, almost too fast to follow.

_Acknowledged. Watch. Guard._

Gin melted away into the crowd, breathing easier with his Master handling Raidou and orders to occupy his mind. _Watch. Guard. _He could do that.

His eyes lightened to dark honey as he immersed himself in mission-mode and started his assignment.

-----

Shikamaru waited until his fellow was gone, and then he turned to the person responsible for all of it.

"What were you doing, exactly?" He hissed.

The man didn't blink, the scar that rippled it's way across his face and neck a menacing testimony to his strength and will to survive. It looked nastily like what the acid-claws of Kiri did, with multiple [or deep] blows and time for it to infect.

That didn't mean that Shikamaru would be all cuddly and brother-in-arms with him.

"I was leaving." Raidou said steadily, but inside, he could barely hear the exchange of words, too preoccupied with the man that had just vanished.

_He looked like Genma._ Was all that he could think. _He looked exactly like Genma. _

The face mask covered up most of his features, ad the hiate-ate was oddly, jarringly _wrong_ on him, but it was Genma. Dark eyes, almost black with the faintest ring of amber around the pupils stared at him in his mind's eye.

"Yeah. Leaving." The young jounin in front of him clearly didn't believe him.

_Genma was DEAD_. His brain screamed at him. _DEAD. _Raidou had commemorated his anniversary just two days ago, hadn't he? They had had a ceremony and a hunt, the paperwork was all in order**-paperwork? **His mind scoffed at him. **Since when, exactly, had he started caring about paperwork?** _Genma was DEAD DEAD DEAD, dead and gone, long gone and buried. There was absolutely __**no use**__ in bringing out his past._

Raidou considered tracking the disturbingly accurate look-alike of his long dead best friend and lover, but apparently the man had allies [as evidenced by the short youth infront of him] and was _very_ good at masking his chakra. Disturbingly good. The big man hadn't even sensed the guy until he had nearly bowled him over.

A hawk soared overhead, wheeling above the rounded rooftops of Konoha. Both shinobi looked up from their standoff, eyes immedietly trained on the messenger bird.

Habit.

Shikamaru _tsk_ed softly. That was a Doku hawk, probably with a message for him. He blew a series of long notes on a bone whistle that had come out of nowhere, and the raptor spiraled down to land on his fist.

Raidou started back a bit when a _fucking __**huge **_bird landed _right_ in front of him, the goldyellow gaze of it's fierce eyes looking _right at him_.

"His name's Tama." Shikamaru introduced them. "Careful, he bites." Dark eyes scanned the small roll of paper.

"Ah, fuck." He muttered, stffing the message in his pouch and throwing the hawk into the air. "Git!"

That was possibly the loudest thing that he had uttered in Konoha during the entire two weeks that he had been there.

The big bird left.

Shikamaru watched it go for a bit –until it was winging it's way over the Hokage mountain- and then wheeled around and _glared_ at Raidou. "We aren't done here. Stay _away_ from Gin, and we'll be fine."

He vanished, leaving the Konoha shinobi staring blankly at nothing. _Gin? **Genma.**_

-----

"_Move_ you little **bastard**!" A harsh not-quite-yell pierced the humid air of afternoon Marsh/Konoha. Aoba stubbornly braced his back and dug in his heels and _refused_ to be dragged anywhere.

Aki swore at him furiously, her long hair damp with sweat and her bare skin glistening in the light.

"God-fucking damnit." Hira sighed. Since he was smaller than his teammates, he was delegated to regulating the chakra restraints on their prisoner, instead of hauling him around. He was never as grateful to be small as he was then. _He_ got to sit on a rock and rest as his teammates tried to yank the prisoner around.

"Lets just knock 'im out." Rin suggested, eyeing the man angrily. His shirt had been deemed too hot and restricting after a half hour and as such, was jammed into the back of his pants,pushing them down and allowing small glimpses of red tattoos to show themselves from his hips.

"Can't." Aki shot that down immediately, shaking her head to indicate that she had already thought of that. "It would disrupt his chakra patterns, which would make the restraints useless, which would mean that he'd be awake and free to use chakra."

"He'd be _unconscious_." Rin pointed out slowly. "_not awake._"

"Yeah" Aki shot back, "For all of three seconds. Disturbing his chakra patterns would wake him up faster than you can say 'tol'ja so'. "

Hira cracked open an eye. "Do you _mind_?" he snapped irritably. "I, apparently _unlike_ you two, am _working_." The eye shut.

"Yeah, yeah, shut'cha bitching Boss-man, we're working." Rin tossed over his shoulder at the seated boy. "You jus' sit there nice an' pretty while _we_ work our asses off. . . " He muttered to himself as he sized up his opponent.

"Don't make this hard, Shadow." The boy warned. Aoba stared back defiantly, _daring_ them to move him.

Rin cracked his knuckles menacingly. The man's eyes crinkled as he started laughing for no apparent reason. Aki didn't even try to stop her teammate as he nailed Shadow in the ribs.

The man slumped, Hira yelped in shock and fell off his rock, Rin had metal in his hands, Aki was _bristling_ with senbon that she had yanked from her clothes and hair, and the air positively _crackled_ with tension. Shadow didn't wake up.

"That was anticlimactic." Aki muttered. Rin sneered half-heartedly at her. A small groan caught their attention. Hira sat up, a hand to his eye.

Weapons vanished, as quickly as they appeared.

"Whassup Boss-man?" Rin's voice sounded entirely too cheerful.

"Backlash." Hira said, grimacing.

**Medic First. Always. Take care of the Medic. Medical personelle are **_**top priority**_. Lessons drilled into their heads from the Academy forced themselves to the forefront of their minds.

-----

"Crap." Aki handed out the verdict. "Mild concussion, by means of this nice looking lump here, and I think you're coils are well, _sore_ would probably be the best description."

"How'd you come up with that diagnosis?" Rin asked, now worried. "Is it bad? Hira's our only medic that can heal more than, well-"

"Shut up." The young controller waved off his concerns. "I'll be fine, so just _stop_ worring about me and- GET HIM!"

Aoba bolted, arms straining to get free from the physical restraints. He tripped slightly, before he decided _to hell with it_ and broke into a flat-out run, ignoring the bonds.

"I'm fastest." Rin said. "I'll go."

He vanished before any of his teammates could stop him, a maniac laugh trailing after him. **Adrenaline: a chemical that the Tsuiro Clan used _all_ the time**, **with no regard for themselves.**

"Hira. . . " Aki started. Hira overrode her calmly.

"Follow." His voice was firm. Nodding grimly, she sped into the foliage. The remaining figure slumped against his former perch.

-----

A few minutes later, he sat as ramrod-straight as f he had been electrocuted. "FUCK!"

The expletive left his lips harshly in the relative quiet of the plains. He struggled to his feet, wooziness coating his senses like a blanket.

'_N__ot good._' He thought. 'N_ot good at all_'

He staggered a few steps in the direction that the rest of his party had taken, then stopped, shuddered, and heaved his guts out on the dusty grass. Hira wiped his mouth with his sleeve and eyed the way that he had to go with trepidation. A tree split in two, then returned to the original four. Wait, that wasn't right, was it? Kami's balls, he was _concussed_.

What the _fuck_ had he been smoking when he had sent his team out after a free **jounin**?!

Hira lurched another few feet, and then collapsed. Painfully.

_Fuck._

_------_

Author's Note:

Uh, yeah. Late. *cringes*

I now am actually on a self-imposed writing schedule [Read: will force myself to try to update at least once a week]!

Didn't really work.

So, Aoba escaped! Raidou discovered Gin's real identity [That was for Lils, who asked about my, quite frankly, invisible/nonexistent reason why people don't immediately discover who they are], and Shika wanders a bit on his break time.

Lils: Actually, the reason why people don't find out who they are is; Tsunade- They left before she was Hokage. Their cover mission is for a relatively large civilian village, trade routes. They don't have a lot of contact with the shinobi of Konoha, not really. And Kotetsu and Izumo were on a mission when they came in.

Don't ask which one, I made it up. Author's privilege.

I also made a discovery. Author's LIVE on reviews. I practically withered here people! I promised not to be a review whore [to myself] and not to hold chapters as hostages [which, really, is _too _easy to do] if I didn't get reviews.

I KNOW that more people than Lils and Maerchen Freunde read this. I have the stat pages to prove it. **Review please!**

*breaths out in forced calm*

Now, I have an interesting little thing up: Do you want me to post another story? And look at my profile, because I occasionally post stuff there. Really, I do.

It wouldn't have a plot or anything, it'd be more like a collection of one-shots, focusing on the other characters that Traitorous and the entire Naruto series doesn't cover all that much.

Lemme know what you think! And as always, **reviews are welcome**, I try to respond -occasionally-, I pay attention to criticism, and I try to make my writing better.

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


	15. SNAFU

Aoba ran, and he didn't look back. The rope around his arms overbalanced him and threw off his center of gravity so badly that he tripped and fell headlong into an undignified sprawl about a mile from his starting point. A light flicker of chakra in the boundaries of his stretched senses drew a muffled curse out of his dry mouth and he threw himself upright by means of some _very _creative twisting and maneuvering.

Staggering once, still getting his feet under him to sprint in the direction of _home_, the **fucking **_**brat**_ was _there_ with a feral grin of glee plastered all. Over. His. Fucking. _Face!_

A growl rumbled deep in the kids chest, even as he _twisted_ and _spun_ and gave chase.

Aoba was a jounin. Even if he was still _wounded_ and _bleedinglikefuck_ and still_ dangerously_ _low_ on chakra, he was a jounin. Which meant that he was Far Above a genin's abilities.

Which was probably why, even tied up and off balance and _halfway dead _he was able to outpace his pursuer semi-easily.

Well, until his pursuer swore and bit his thumb bloody and activated the sealed collar around Aoba's neck.

And Aoba howled and fell to the dirt, shoulders hunched around his ears in a futile attempt to _stopitstopitstopit_ , eyes shut so tightly that it felt like he'd pulverize his eyeballs with a throbbing brain and a lancing gut-ache and legs that were suddenly _cramping_ and _twitching_ beyond his control.

Rin appeared a minute later; jogging causally up to the writing jounin and watching him struggle for a few seconds. His lip slowly lowered, covering up the fang that had been visible during the chase.

"This?" He said crouching down next to Aoba's tightly held-in-check head, "Is payback." A flicker of chakra to sever the sealtag connection and he stood up, slapping new repressive tags on Aoba's Gates and tightening the wire around his wrists until they _cut_ into his skin and a drop of blood slid silently around the metal to drip into the dirt, leaving a small bubble of dust-coated liquid.

"_Bastard!_" he gasped through a bone-dry mouth, head lolling fruitlessly.

Rin snorted ingloriously, checking his knots and keeping a watchful eye on the border [just in eyeshot], poised to run if needed. "Shaddup."

He hoisted the jounin onto his shoulder, staggered under the weight, shifted positions and took off running.

Aki met up with him a few minutes later, her dark hair sticking to her back and neck. "Something's wrong with Hira." She informed him worriedly.

Eyes flickered towards her, turning away as quickly as she blinked. "By the Trickster, can we not _get a break_?!"

"Apparently not." Aoba's wry voice cut through the air. Rin turned an irritated glance at him.

"Didn't I _gag_ you?!" he demanded. Aoba's grin was impish even as he twisted his head and spat out the remnants of said gag. Aki shook her head, a grin twisting her mouth upwards even as she reached out to slap the man on his shoulder.

"Hey, Shadow, you learn your lesson?" Her voice was cheerful enough, but there was a slight undercurrent of _accusation_ in her voice.

Aoba sensed it easily enough, and avoided possible danger with a, "Yes Ma'am."

Rin unceremoniously tossed the jounin from his back, and continued on without a word. Aoba twisted and landed on his feet with all the grace of a cat, stifling a hiss at the stress on his side.

"C'mon."

They found Hira facedown on the ground, unconscious. He'd gone fetal by the time that they got there, and Aki got the job of carrying him.

"He stressed himself out too much." Was her diagnosis. "Wake him up every hour and he'll be fine."

"Shadow, you run away again, and I won't just turn on the current."

Aoba trailed along obediently behind the Graduates.

-----

Shikamaru resisted the urge to sigh in frustration at the persistence of a certain shinobi that had taken to popping p everywhere they went. The blasted man just _wouldn't_ _quit_.

Data had been elivered to him by way of several intoxicated shinobi and a sleepy Genma, giving him the basic stats of the big man.

Namiashi Raidou. 009717. Tokubetsu Jounin, with a specialty of taijutsu. One of the direct bodyguards to the Hokage. Thought to have been in ANBU at one point, but the entire point of ANBU was that it was the _secret_ force of Konoha, therefore he couldn't put much stock in _those_ rumors.

More importantly, Genma's old lover.

Shikamaru rubbed his eyes, trying to stave off the impeding headache.

Enemy jounin. Psychologically of great importance to Genma.

Enemy. Genma.

_Enemy_. _Genma_.

Genma.

Ooh boy, Master was going to _kill_ him for this.

-----

Far away, at the very border of Fire Country, his team was _moving_.

"Tricky, tricky." Rin's teeth gleamed as he grinned madly. Aki shot him a glance.

"What are you muttering about?" she whispered. Rin was about to answer her, when a small _click_ caught his attention and he vaulted off the branch he was on, catapulting himself off the rough surface and clinging to another tree with chakra.

And then he staggered and nearly fell off of it because _Hira_ was still on his back and the shockwave had staggered him and his not-so-steady grip.

"People coming." Aoba volunteered suddenly, shutting his eyes a moment later [stupidstupidstupid] at his own idiocy.

"Thanks Shadow." Aki grinned slyly at him, and then vanished, blurring away into the foliage. [faster than a genin should be able to move]

And then he was snatched around his waist and _pulled_ underground, and _left_ there with just enough air to survive for a few minutes. He started moving, trying to find a weak spot in the rock that held him fast, trying to find a good angle and _smash_ the immobile bonds and free himself.

He stopped moving altogether in a few minutes, breathing shallowly to conserve oxygen.

Above ground, Rin had handed Hira off to his female teammate and was crouched in the treetops, peering around for people, hands ready to form seals at the slightest provocation.

_Movement_.

Rin slapped seals together and _twisted_ his chakra and all of a sudden everything turned _sharper_ and _clearer_.

The people abruptly changed course and headed stright for him-a feral grin crept over the boy's face and he _ran_.

A bolting, coltish run on all fours, bounding from tree to tree, flipping around like a money on crack.

And then he could sense the _massive_ protection jutsu around Konoha and he started seeing patches of grassgreen in cracks of forest because space was running out. [in the middle of a fucking _forest_, space was running out]

And then a new chakra joined his pursuers and he was _fallingfallingfalling _ off the **fucking** branches that spiderwebbed in the air above his head and crashing right onto some ridiculously **green** jounin [Konoha. His mind whispered, and he ignored it because he was too busy trying to _runhidegetaway_].

And then the jounin's brats were popping out of nowhere and he panicked, viciously stabbing the first kid he saw with a poisoned senbon and spiting acid [and **fuckinghell** that _burns!_] into another's face and the third one got him by surprise, a palmfist charged with _rushingburning_ chakra slamming directly into his side and he howled in pain as he kept on _fallingfallingfalling_ through the trees.

And they kept after him, until he twisted together seals and snaps a spark of _brightlyflaring_ chakra into a tag that he had slapped onto one of them and _yanked_ his chakra into a tightly twisting loopycurve that _should_ have transported him somewhere that was **safer** than there, but the Jounin had fucking **grabbed onto him**, so the added weight and mass that was needed to transport was too much for the amount of energy that he had put into the jutsu. And then the fucking **bastard** _**hijacked **_his jutsu, sending the both of them sprawling into the Hokage's Meeting chamber.

He ducked out of the grip that had loosened from the disorientation [a brief flicker of pride for his modified Shushin] and tried the jutsu again and then he was **_howlingyellingsobbingbegging _**as electricity surged through his vulnerable body, triggering what seemed like _every single __**fucking **_nerve in his _**entire**_ body in an explosion of _painagonystopstopstopstopstop_.

And when it finished [because he had canceled the chakra to his jutsu] he was half-mad with fury and pain and he **lunged** at the jounin making him curse as he leaped back as he palmed more senbon and flicked his wrists to send them flying.

And then ANBU were on him like flies were to horse shit and he was crushed under a flying tackle from at least three, fully equipped, 130 lb plus shinobi in armor. A rib broke.

But it had worked.

Aki and Hira were safe, and they still had Shadow. A wiped out grin flashed briefly on his face-and then a _giant_ of a man strde into the chamber.

Aura of look-a-me-and-die: check.

Facial scars: check.

Trenchcoat: check.

Interrogators gloves: check.

Fuck. His team _better_ find Sensei before anything could happen to him.

Rin shot an _evil_ glare at the green guy, who was watching him get manhandled by fully grown men.

_Bastard_.

-----

Aoba didn't know what had gone on-one second he was suffocating, the next he was being pulled _up_ and _out_ of the earth and thrown on someone's back and feeling his stomach _lurch_ as he heaved up bile and acid.

Aki glanced at the puke and took a double take. "Hey, who fed him?"

"You did, didn't you?" Hira was a little fuzzy on his feet, but he had been determined fit enough for duty by Aki.

"Nope." She shok her head as she briskly shook Aoba from his dry heaves. "You been fed Shadow?"

The jounin shook his head, desperately fighting back the nausea that the motion caused him.

"Don't need this-" Hira told her, fidgeting.

"Yeah, but we need _him_." Aki tossed back, eyeing the man critically as she rifled throught her pack in search of a rat bar.

"Do we really?" Aoba _really_ didn't like the way that the boy was appraising him. Almost more than he didn't like the way that Hira was dancing senbon through his knuckles.

[He would've snorted, if this weren't a dangerous situation. Punk had some fancy tricks with weapons, but dancing needles weren't exactly harmful]. The girl tossed him a rat bar and he opened the waxed paper with his teeth, fumbling with tied hands.

"Yes, we do. You're the one who suggested the entire thing Hira, don't you _dare_ back out now." Aki's voice was cold and deadly, [impressive for a kid] metal gleaming in her fingers.

Hira growled but subsided. The deadly intent vanished from the air.

"Shadow."

Aoba looked up warily. "What?"

"Konoha."

"What about it?"

"Where is it? You're being traded."

The jounin nearly dropped his rations. He was _what_?

"Well?" Her voice was impatient.

Aoba shut his mouth stubbornly.

Hira twitched. "Fine, we'll do this the hard way."

He shaped seals and then a force was _pushing_ it's way into the jounin's mind, and _shoving_ his head into _pieces_ and _yanking_ the knowledge needed out through his fucking _pores_.

Aoba threw up again.

"It's that way." The boy pointed.

"Right. Seal him." All mission-mode now.

Aoba stumbled around, trying to back _away_, when the brats _lunged_ at him and fingers _grabbed_ his clothes and then a _whooshingsucking_ sensation enveloped him and everything went dark.

The Graduates looked at the scroll that now held a jounin shinobi and looked at each other. Grinned, slowly. High-fived.

Bolted towards Konoha.

-----

Author's Note:

Late. Again. I know, I know, update more. And faster. Which, you know, I could probably do, but I was preoccupied with trawling through youtube in search of the Akatsuki sailor song.

Right: Dedicated to, oh, say Peppymint, because she has written an AWESOME traitor!Naruto story, that I Love.

Called 'From the Ashes', has a sequel and a prequel, go read it.^^

OK, I have another story up, which I'm going to add to in the next few days or so, becase my Aoba chapter is nearly done. Kotetsu's next, but I need to refine it before it shows itself. *It's primping*

In other news, Lils seems to have disappeared [again], but Maerchen has stuck with me! Yay!

As Always, reviews are welcome, I try to respond and I try to work on whatever criticism you lot give me.

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


	16. Meetings

"This better not kill him."

"It shouldn't."

"I thought you said that it was clear?"

"When did I say that? Tou-san gave it to me-no idea why. Said it was experimental, but that it should work fine."

"EXPERI-fuck. Get Shadow out of there. Now."

-----

"Gin, c'mere."

"Yes?"

"I got a message."  
"Mm?"

"The brats are here. One of them's in Morino's cells."

Silence.

"Listen to me pet. You're going to wait by the gates and meet up with the kids. Understood?" his dark eyes were serious, not half-lidded like they usually were in the daytime.

"Hai." Genma nodded sharply and readied himself to leave.

"I will be intervening for the other one at the Hokage Tower."

Shikamaru looked at his subordinate in the eyes, and then released him. "Go."

Genma was gone by the time he opened his mouth.

Shikamaru stayed in place for a moment. His head shook slowly. Then he vanished in a wisp of smoke and shadow.

-----

Genma oozed up from the ground a few feet away from the Guard's desk in Konoha, and settled down to wait.

"H-hey!" One of the chunin [didn't know them. Insignificant. Able to ignore] yelped, startled. "You can't be there!"

Genma _looked_ at the man, all chakra-presence and dark intimidation and cool emotionless eyes.

The man didn't fold, and he was grateful for that, if only because it meant that Konoha _wasn't _completely full of idiots and spineless bastards.

_Guards_, pah! When _he_ had been a guard for Konoha's Meetings, nobody would've just been sentenced to _Morino_, no, they would've been hung drawn and quartered, numerous times.

-----

The wonders of genjutsu.

-----

"Seriously, you can't be there." The man's partner was interfering. Unacceptable.

Genma rose to his feet. Slowly. Languidly. Sensually. Then he wasn't there anymore.

He reappeared, _pressed_ against one of the men, draped over his back and practically _purred_ lasciviously.

The man gulped, suddenly tense and uneasy.

"You _sure_?" Genma's husky voice went straight from the chunin's head to his groin. The slim fingers against the man's orgasm points had _nothing_ to do with that, of course.

"Y-yeah." Completely self-conscious. Just the thing _that_ particular tone had been designed to do. And the pressure points, but that's jut an afterthought.

"Pity." Genma disentangled himself from the man, garnering an almost-silent sigh of relief, when his head snapped up and he _grinned_.

About time those _brats_ got there.

The girl showed up on his radar first, a slight chakra-signature, a cool blue that was filled to the brim with tiny tiny little blades in molten silver. Her presence itched at the border of his senses, just _barely_ there, pale and flickering with worry.

The boy didn't appear at all.

What the _fuck_ were they doing over there?

He rolled his shoulders, bit his thumb, and _pushed_ his power down through his arms and fingers and bloody sacrifice.

-----

Just in range of his sensing skills, Aki's head tilted towards Konoha. _Power_ whispered through the ground, calling her.

She knew this power. The Dollhouse had brought Him in, once. He had had a handler with him-young and silent but _completely_ in control. When They had come in, They allowed Their chakra-presence to appear for one, tense, horrible minute. The entire class, except for the sensei and the chunin help had slowly been suffocating in the air, heavy with intimidation.

Then They had left.

"By the Trickster and Shinigami." She muttered. "They gave us to _them_?!"

-----

Shikamaru headed straight to the Top. The Hokage of Konohagakure.

"You have something of my village. We would like it back." Blunt and straightforward.

"Really?" Amber eyes narrowed as they scrutinized the man-child in front of her. A jounin by the odd 'vest' that he wore [making him an adult in all shinobi villages. Once you took the hiate-ate, you became an authority figure. An adult. Someone trusted with lives] one of those diplomats from that village in that muddy place somewhere. Oh, Dokugakure.

"And just what do we have?"

"A student."

"Eh?" Tsunade blinked. Student, student,-"the kid who was caught breaking into the Hokage's Meeting Chamber?"

"Yes."

The Hokage could only stare at the jounin in frontof her in disbelief. "You want us to release someone who was caught, red-handed, breaking into one of Konohagakure's most Important places?!"

"Yes." Shikamaru didn't budge.

Tsunade didn't even think twice about her decision. "No."

She poured herself a saucer of sake and downed it, before noticing that the jounin hadn't moved. "Anything else?" She raised an eyebrow elegantly.

The unrecognizable Nara held out a scroll. A small one, [had to have come by messenger bird] edged in gold-for _veryimportant_ things-with the stamp of 'Doku' on it.

Tsunade sighed and plucked the papyrus from the teenager's fingers.

She skimmed through it, drummed her fingers on the impressive-looking ironwood desk and thought.

"Tch."

Shikamaru didn't move throughout her thought process, letting the woman weigh the pros and cons o disregarding the letter from his Master.

The Hokage grabbed a piece of clean paper and scribbled something on it, signing it with a flourish and a decisive _thud_ of a stamp.

"Guard!" A wisp of barely-displaced air and two shinobi were _there_, blades out and flashing dangerously near his extremely susceptible throat.

"Stop that." She waved away the hostility and thrust the paper towards one of the shinobi.

"Here. Hand this off to one of the Messengers-it goes to Ibiki."

"Hai." The man was about to leave when she called him back.

"Oh, and shinobi? I want the package delivered in the _exact_ condition that he was deposited in. Understood?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama." The jounin bowed, and left.

Shikamaru was inwardly impressed. What, he wondered idly, had his Master said in that letter, that would get the Hokage to fold so easily?

After all, it wasn't as though she couldn't just kick him out-oh, wait. She couldn't without a _damn_ good reason.

He _loved_ having Diplomatic Immunity.

The jounin squashed the unprofessional urge to snicker, bowed, and retreated to the hotel.

-----

Rin tilted his head back, relishing the cool darkness, even if that infernal drip in the corner was pissing him off. He was chained, obviously, and sealed, but for Trickster's sake, he had apparently been in the Hokage's Meeting Chamber, so it wasn't all that surprising.

The surprising part is, he had been left for a few days. He thought. Couldn't really tell time where he was.

In Doku, if something like this had happened, there wouldn't be _time_ for the subject to stew for a few days, waiting for a rescue party, they'd be up on the rack screaming within the hour. Heh.

He, on the other hand, had just been manhandled a bit, then tossed in a cell to rot for a while without food or water. Predictable.

He gowled a bit, in the back of his throat when his sensitive ears caught the faint echos of sound coming from the ahllway.

Since he wasn't deemed high enough on the shit-list to get a sound-proofed cell, he got to hear _all_ the noises from the other cells. It bugged the shit out of him.

". . . the _hell_ do you mean, we gotta release him!" someone yelped.

Rin cracked one eye open. This sounded interesting.

"-ders from the top." A deeper voice now, and getting clearer. The boy sat up, both eyes open and fully alert.

"Broke into the Meeting Chamber!" the first voice protested.

Woah, wait-they were talking about _him_.

The door to his cell clicked and slid open, the heavy, metal-plated wood scraping across the ground unpleasantly.

It was the bear-man with the scars. And some other dude with long side bangs and a pretty little smile and eyes that shone malovently. Or maybe it was just the crappy lighting. Rin huddled down on himself under the bear-man's intimidating glare and hissed softly, hands flexing.

-----

Ibiki raised an eyebrow at the distinctly _feline_ way that the boy was reacting to his presence. It amused him.

The small amout of killing intent wasn't bad, either.

Ah, rookies. They always looked so _cute_.

"You're free to go, kid." No matter how _cute_ they were, Ibiki had never liked admitting defeat.

Rin uncurled from his spot on the ground and eyed the man warily.

Good survival instincts, that one. Or, he was just really really well trained.

"Don't try anything." The pretty-man warned him, before reaching over to unchain him.

The second he was free, Rin scrambled _away_ from the men, arms up and in a defensive position. Bear-man grabbed him by the bck of his shirt [grabbed a handful of his scruff too, and fuck that _hurt_] and started steering the Graduate out of the cell.

Rin's shoulders hunched up in an immediate defensive reaction to the _grab_ and then hissingsparkingcrackling chakra was covering his eyes in a stinging blindfold.

Ibiki released the kid's shirt, and hauled him over his shoulder before the brat could run off and possibly infiltrate _another_ classified spot. After the first kicks and muffled, foul-sounding protests, the big man firmly shook the boy, and the grouchy body on his shoulder shut up.

-----

Aoba groaned. Damn, these kids were really wearing him down. What the _fuck_ had they drugged him with? The after effects were reminding him of an aphrodisiac, mixed with a knockout drug. A bit of fuzziness- some kind of mind altering serum? Nah. He dismissed that possibility from his mind.

He blinked his eyes open, and winced as the afternoon sun shone straight into his pupils, promptly closing his eyes again. Aki fell backwards from looking at the man's vital signs.

"Hira!"

"What?" the Controller snapped, aggrieved that his teammate had disturbed him from resting with an annoyingly cheerful voice.

"Shadow's up." She informed him, instantly back to cold and formal.

Damnit. Hira repressed a sigh, and tried to repair their 'relationship', before it killed them all.

"Aki, look-"

She turned away from him, deliberately ignoring him.

Clearly, she was pissed at him. Couldn't imagine why.

"Oh, come on! He's alive isn't he?"

Aki sniffed disdainfully at the words.

The man sat up slowly, holding his head in pain. "I have a _killer_ headache brat. Shut up."

Hira gaped at the man, who had been completely silent most of the time he had 'been with' them.

"Ooh, Shadow's got _spark_!" the girl cackled as she cheerfully hit him across his broad shoulders. Her teammate's eyebrow twitched.

Aoba barely moved. "Where're my shades?" his deep voice was muffled in his hands.

"Somewhere." Hira shrugged. Aki started rifling around in the pouches that had been pilfered from the man while unconscious, withdrawing a bottle of painkillers. And a spare set of tinted glasses.

"Here ya' go." Entirely too cheerful.

Aoba slid the shades on, and downed the pills gratefully-after looking at the bottle suspiciously, and taking another one.

"Right. What'd you brats do to me?"

The two genin didn't answer that question. Aoba didn't really expect an answer anyway.

So, where was the third one? The one with the accent?

"Captured." The bitchy one said sullenly, casting a glare in the jounin's direction when he asked. He, clearly, blamed Aoba for that piece of monumental idiocy on his teammates part.

"So, even you lot can fall to us mortals." A grin appeared on his face, and it wasn't a _nice_ grin, either.

"Yeah, well, you won't have to deal with us for long. We'll either be dead in a matter of days, or we'll have traded you for Rin no problems."

"Fun."

"Yeah," Hira tossed in bitterly, "fun."

"Shaddup Hira."

-----

Author's Note:

Alright, when Lils returned from reading Chapter 15, she asked that the next one be out by Christmas. Or before. But, I was lazy and decided that I wouldn't rush. And then I got all guilty, and the result? A NEW CHAPTER!

Probably won't happen all that often. Happy Holidays, by the way!

I [THANK YOU MAERCHEN!] now know how to edit chapters so that they can be corrected, and I shall do that as soon as possible in regards to some errors that I've seen.

Thank you to Maerchen Freunde, and Lils for sticking with me on this!

lils, just out of curiosity, do you have a acount? Because someone using 'lils' as their name has an account. And the blue-edged scroll, it was a solo mission for Genma, _about_ Shika. Still a solo mission, since Genma's the only one getting paid for it. Think of Shika as. . . the additional bodyguard to someone, hired by someone else. They work together, slightly, but mostly do their own thing. Hope that clears stuff up.

So, the team is FINALLY getting together! Sorta.

Aki's pissed at Hira, Rin is currently being taken to who knows where, Gin/Genma has just _purred_ and _rubbed_ against some chunin that I'm not bothering to name, and Shika is standing there.

Anything else. . . oh! Aoba grew a pair. ^^

Check my profile for updates, because I post stuff there, along with how my chapters are doing.  
As always, reviews are appreciated, I try to get back to you, and now, for the holiday spirit, I give reviewers . . Cookies!

Ja,

QuietInsomniac


	17. Psyche

Hira doesn't _try_ to be an ass, he really doesn't.

But he's a third-gen shinobi, and as he's told time and time again, he has a clan reputation to hold up.

From the time he could understand his parents, Hira was taught about chakra. About shinobi. About duty.

He learned how to tree-walk when he was six. He could water-walk by the time he was seven. By the time he was eight, Hira had, arguably, the best chara control out of everyone in his village under the age of 13.

Of course, all good things come to an end, and when Hira was nine, his village was razed by their local feudal lord. His family melted away.

Akio, Hira's older sister went into prostitution to help raise money for her family to eat. His mother worked five shifts at three different restaurants. His father was dying slowly from an old wound. Hira was sent out to beg on the streets.

That was where he saw his first shinobi. Ones that _weren't_ his parents.

They were fast, silent, and _intimidating_. They radiated an aura of 'fuck with me and die'. They had cool clothes, and apparently knew a whole other language that consisted of hand signs!

Hira was entranced, and spent the week stalking the exotic visitors. Somewhere in his head, he decided that he would become like them. No one would mess with _these_ guys, so his family would be safe.

Hira's changed his reason for becoming shinobi so many times that he doesn't know why anymore. The reason always includes his family in it.

At night, when he was sleeping, the shinobi would smile at each other knowingly, kid around, or shake their heads at the antics of civilians.

_Civilians._ They said to each other.

Weird people that could _breath fire!_ Said Hira to his family.

His family had chuckled wearily to each other, tired lines creasing in gentle mirth as they explained to their youngest about shinobi once again.

The second time Hira saw shinobi was when he was ten. He had been picked up. A fatal sentence for kids on the corner.

But the big man with the laugh in his eyes and the rumble of a deep-chested person who is used to screaming at people in his voice was nice to him. He had tossed food at the small boy and deposited him back home at night.

When Hira left home for Doku, he knew exactly what he was doing. Doku had been to his villiage with a talent-search, and they had picked up on the small boy's potential.

More importantly, they picked up on his already trained chakra. His control wasn't something to be proud of, but for someone who was living as a civilian, it was impressive.

So Hira'd gone off to the East Academy and had been tapped for a Controller.

His letters home had _radiated_ exuberance and the tone of his words were sometimes almost garbled on the page.

His parents had chosen not to live as shinobi in Dokugakure with their son, deciding to retire from the streets without their youngest mouth to feed, and a sizable bank account balance, carefully saved from their meager earnings. The money that Hira sent home helped too.

They were shinobi-even if they had no clan or village to support them, and they would protect their land from all who dared threaten it.

Hira still gets letters with clippings depicting this person or that woman who was accosted and then freed.

Hira has a clan reputation to uphold, even if his clan has four people left in it, and the rest are long gone and buried. Hira has a family to make proud, even if they're miles away from him and his life in Doku.

Hira has a team to protect, even if they have a shared bond of the rigors of seduction training that he'll probably _never_ be able to match.

Hira doesn't _try_ to be an ass, he really doesn't. But he has _pressure_ on him-more than his teammates should ever have to feel. So Hira takes it on himself to shield his girls from things that they don't need to feel, or experience.

-----

Aki, on the other hand, thinks that Hira is _too_ protective. She's been trained to _whore_, for the Trickster's sake! She doesn't _need_ some _virgin_ to tell her that he's going to help her _deal_ with stuff.

Her shit is her shit, and that's the way that Aki's lived for her entire life.

Hira says that he'll never be able to really _understand_ what Aki and Rin have. Aki assumes that he means the seduction training that they went through.

Sure, unless Hira suddenly decides to become a seduction specialist, he won't really understand what the rookies go through in the North Academy.

Yes, Seduction is taught at the North Academy. Right next to the Healers and Messengers, and squeezed in between bloodstained sessions with T&I, with the people that more senior girls have brought down.

Aki's not a third-gen, she's a second-gen. Only her parents have been shinobi before her, and she doesn't belong to a clan. Before her parents were cast out of _their_ clan, for choosing to be shinobi, they belonged to the Merchant Guild.

One of the largest Guilds in Doku, it controlled most of the exports and imports throughout the village. It also managed the currency, and made sure that the value and exchange rates were even.

The Merchant Guild controlled the economy.

Aki doesn't really care.

Her dad died a year back, and her mother is as good as.

Every month, Aki goes to the asylum. The one that's located on the outskirts of Doku. Where the _violently_ insane ones were kept.

So that if they were ever attacked, the patients could be released and directed towards the enemy.

Aki remembers signing the form that let them do that with her mother.

It was thin and cool in her hands, black type stark against the pure background. Shining black ink sinking into the paper, staining it death from quick fingers.

The attack hasn't happened yet [Doku's still a relatively small village] but Aki knows that it's only a matter of time before she gets the notice of death and has to hear inhumane screams and roars from the battlefield.

Only a matter of time before they release her mother from her _whitewhitewhite_ cell and her _metalandcloth_ restraints, point her outside, and tell her to kill.

Aki tells herself that she doesn't care.

Her mother only wants to serve her village-after all, that's the _only_ thing that she _ever_ told her daughter when she comes to visit.

**Why am I here? Let me out, I need to GO! They're **_**killing**_** the village-I need to **_**stop**_** them! Let me out! Let me OUT! I need to HELP! The village NEEDS me, I HAVE A DUTY! **She shrieks, struggling madly whenever the scent of blood reaches her.

Sadly, Aki's mother is always like that.

-----

The asylum smells like blood.

-----

So, Aki keeps her mother hidden from her teammates [a dirrrty little secret, hidden behind a strong face and a vibrant personality] and resents Hira's attempts to do his job.

Because if Hira does his job right, then he'll find out, and if someone finds out about _her_, than everything's ruined. Aki knows that if someone finds out about _her_, then everything will tumble down in pieces, like a sand castle built on th beach, only to be kicked over by a particularly grumpy little boy on his way home. Or maybe it'll be like a ruined castle, the remains there, as a tribute to what was once there and never will be again, missing pieces but with enough of the founding blocks evident to identify her.

Either way, she doesn't want that to happen. Aki wants to stay alive and healthy and as sane as she can.

Asylums are _not_ in her future. Aki looks at her mother and swears that she'll kill herself first.

Aki balances on tightropes from the Guild and the Village and her Mother and her team and herself.

Rin worries. He's a third-gen shinobi, but he doesn't have pressure on him [like Hira] and both his parents are alive [unlike Aki].

He uses his training and sees Aki slowly cracking and Hira running himself into the ground. He's the one who noticed the distinctive stench of bile on Aki and connected it with her disturbingly light frame during practice.

But Aki's the one who saw him looking at the river sadly, and _Aki_'s the one who sidles up to him when he thinks about drowning and stays there, a solid, unyielding, warm blue-silver chakra presence.

-----

Rin worries about his team, and himself, and the parents, who even if they're alive, go on high-level missions routinely and are probably going to do something _stupid_ and get themselves killed.

Rin is terrified about being alone. He's claustrophobic, because if he's in a dark, closed space, then nobody's with him. Nobody's going to help him.

Rin knows about the _special_ asylum on the outskirts of town. He knows that 50% of Seduction specialists [the ones that _don't_ die or commit suicide or break to the point of catatonia] end up there.

He also knows what the _special_ asylum is supposed to do with the patients when the village is attacked.

Rin worries, because as a part of his training, he visited it. The people there were the _violent_ deadly insane, and they frothed wildly at the mouth as he passed their rooms [_cells_], tugging frantically at restraints or lying limply on the ground, or on a bed, heads and tongues lolling about--drugged.

Rin doesn't want to end up there, but he doesn't want to die, either.

Rin wants to serve his village and _survive_.

-----

He used to live in the fields. The outskirts of Doku, on the opposite side of the asylum. He would run through Doku every day to get to the Academy, arriving out of breath and sweaty.

He's started to equate being cooped up with loss of freedom. Rin likes seeing the pale, washed out blue sky above him, and be able to feel small, serrated blades of grass under hs feet. Rin loves the feel and _smell_ of the wind, searing cold in the winter, sticky-humid in the summer [when all the _bugs_ come out] and light and breezy the rest of the year.

The smaller the space, the worse it is.

Rin worries, because that is a _major_ flaw, a weakness that he _can't afford_ to have. He knows that he won't be able to make it go away.

Rin hides his worry for his teammates behind sarcasm and a peasants accent. He isn't a civilian-he just happens to live on the outskirts of town. With the blacksmiths forge and the farmers, that's all.

Rin needs the extra space for practicing his clan's specialty jutsu.

Rin has had his own training space since he mastered his clan's first jutsu-and destroyed an abandoned barn. Everyone in his clan has their own training space, actually.

The Tsuiro Clan has the most land out of all the clans in Dokugakure. If you added up all the land that the Merchant's Guild _monitored_, then you'd get a bit more than what the Tsuiro clan owns.

Yeah, _that_ much.

Really.

-----

Rin only owns a _sliver_ of that wealth. He still has more land to his name than his teammates ever will.

-----

Team 4 wasn't picked at random.

People _chose_ to make Hira have _two_ 'girls' to deal with instead of one, to make Aki work to hide her secrets, to force Rin to worry even more.

The rest of their class? They were, unless they were wanted for a specialized team, picked out of a hat.

No one will ever know.

-----

When Shikamaru got the notice that he was getting another Graduate team, he left Dokugakure and headed for Konoha.

His plan is to make his team _track_ him all the way there, and then attac him in enemy territory.

Nara Shikamaru does not want a team.

-----

Genma doesn't really care-if Shikamaru wants, or doesn't want something, it's not his place to ask.

Besides, the younger assassin has promised that Genma can create and oversee their third test.

That's a secret too.

-----

Shikamaru already knows that _this_ team will pass, and he's already thought up a mission schedual and a training plan for each of them. The little Controller will be with him, taught how to do his job-_properly_ this time, and then handed over to one of his teammates as one of _their_ girls.

The other male, he would be taken by Genma, and shown seduction techniques that he should know. Things that he would _need_ to know by the time Shikamaru was done with them.

And the girl.

She'd be with both Genma and Shikamaru, learning Ijutsu from the tokujou, and taijutsu from the jounin.

And then they'd all go to a bar, dance the night away, and the older pair would work on getting the younger companions well and completely drunk.

Heh.

A change of pace would be good for the brats.

If they survived all of that, then Shikamaru would collar them with their respective Recognition ribbons, and they'd continue from there.

But only, concluded the shadow master with a smirk, if they passed the test.

-----  
Author's Note:

ACK!

This is a HORRIBLE chapter that I'm really not satisfied with. It's totally influenced by all the '20 Truths' that I've been reading. O.O

But yes, this is practically all about Team 4 [Aki, Hira and Rin]. Sort of like Habits, but with . . .3, no. . . 5 people instead of 2.

Now: I KNOW THAT IT'S LATE! I'm really sorry about it too, but I had exams, and then with the *snow* that I *had* to go out in. . .

So yeah, I was lazy. Hope this makes up for it.

I GOT A REVIEW THAT WAS NOT FROM MAERCHEN OR LILS! WHOOT! Oh, and Lils? Ibiki probably won't smile in this story. He'll grin sadistically. Just saying. . .

And as always, feel free to review *cough* and leave concrit. I try to listen to my reviewers and I generally respond.

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


	18. Return

Genma breathed. In. Out. In. Out.

The faintest sounds reached his chakra-enhanced ears: the gentle swish of approaching shinobi, the quiet sounds of feet pushing off of thick branches, crashing sounds coming from closer by Konoha-probably genin on some D-ranked mission-, panting from a few miles away, and faint orders being yelled in the training grounds.

Zeroing on the harsh breaths, Genma narrowed his focus and estimated the distance, and vanished.

-----

Raidou finished his morning stretches and yawned, rolling his shoulders to work out the kinks. A knock on his window-what the hell?-sounded and the big jounin ambled to the upside-down face of Sarutobi Asuma, a fellow jounin.

"Whats up Asuma-san?" He asked, disabling his traps and opening the window. Asuma grinned around his cigarette and casually flipped inside his friend's apartment. Raidou grumbled good-naturedly, but shut the opening again.

"So," Asuma started. "I hear that the Doku representative got into something with you." Raidou smirked at the man and his poorly disguised gossip mongering, and started towards his kitchen for tea. He was in too good a mood to let Asuma ruin it, but that didn't mean that he couldn't feed the man the weirdest stuff in his house.

"Maybe." Where was that tin of ginger-persimmon tea that had been in his cupboard? "What's it to you?"

"Ah, don't be like that Raidou." Asuma wheedled, imitating the nasally droning tone of voice that all ambassadors seemed to have.

Raidou snorted and chucked a spoon at the jounin's head. Asuma caught the flying implement easily, chuckling. Raidou hadn't been this lively in _ages_.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, really. Why, you got a bet on this?" the jounin teased as he set the kettle on to stove.

"Come on Raidou! _Nothing_ doesn't happen with an ambassador!" Asuma sat up, absently twirling the spoon in his fingers. "Especially with _that_ one. . ." he added the last in an undertone, more to himself than to his host.

"Psh, really Asuma, nothing happened, but I think I 'intruded' on his territory or something by the way he was steaming at me."

Asuma leaned forward, sensing blood and going for the kill. "Intruding onto his territory were you? What, were you eyeing his 'escort'? Made a move on his daughter?"

The scarred jounin shoved a teacup towards his somewhat-unwelcome guest, miraculously not spilling the steaming liquid onto himself.

"Get your mind out of the gutter Asuma, yeah? The Ambassadore's like, seventeen, twenty. _Way_ too young to have a kid."

Asuma stirred his tea with the stolen spoon. "You never know, Raidou, you never know."

He grinned and leaned back in his seat, blowing on his cup to cool it off. "So if it wasn't one of those, what was it?"

The bearded jounin took a sip of his tea and froze, face contorted in horror, before violently spitting it out all over the table.

"What the _fuck!"_ Raidou jerked back from his seat as soon as Asuma had leaned forward. "Kami-sama, if you didn't like it you could have just _said_ so, instead of spitting it all over my table. . ." he grumped.

Asuma glared at him evilly, trying to scrape off his tongue with the spoon carefully.

"Thith ith all _your_ faul'!" He accused crossly. Raidou's eyebrows rose as he stared at the jounin in front of him.

Asuma was _not_ amused when Raidou started sniggering at him, chuckles escalating into chortles, into deep, full-belly laughs that were louder and more heart-felt than anything that had come out of his mouth in _years_.

Even if it _totally_ made it worth partially ingesting a possibly poisonous, questionable _substance_.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up." He groused. Asuma looked at the clock and leapt to his feet. "Oh, crap. Sorry to leave ya like this Raidou, but I've gotta mission in like, 30 minutes!"

He vanished in a burst of smoke. Raidou cracked his window open irately, letting the breeze clear out his apartment.

Shikamaru hooked his legs into the railing on the top of the building, and dropped over backwards, hands stopping his face from meeting the cement and brick of the apartment wall.

Raidou stared, nonplussed at the jounin that had appeared upside-down at his window.

"We need to talk."

-----

Aoba wasn't really sure what to make of his captors. They were young, yeah. Really young. Not good for his ego, to be captured by them. But they were good for brats.

Too good for the ordinary genin-but then again, since when was there such thing as an 'ordinary' shinobi?

Last night Aki had danced, all liquid grace and shadow-play on the ripple of muscles and flesh. Hira had been ordered to rattle out a solemn beat in the moonlight, and he had, the rest of his attention on the sleek movements of his teammate.

Aoba doubted that the boy knew that his mouth had been hanging open as he watched the dance, mesmerized by the hypnotic beat and firelight. Not to say that Aoba hadn't been impressed too, because he had. But the kid had said that he was trained as a handler. He wasn't shaping up to be a very good one on what Aoba had seen so far. The girl was running wild and completely stomping over him-not that it wasn't amusing, but it was also slightly pathetic. He had lost his other one [which was really too much pressure on one Controller] but who was Aoba to curse a stroke of luck?

He'd recognized that dance-it was a common seduction pattern, taught in all villages that he'd. Aoba mused on the ethics on having eleven and twelve year old children study the art of fucking strangers, and then cast that debate to the back of his mind.

Somehow he knew that there just wasn't going to be a good answer to that question.

The jounin sprawled indolently against a tree and watched the show unashamedly. She had the moves down pat, he'd give her that. The moonlight and shadows from the small fire were used effectively. . . the girl had been trained well.

When Aki had finished, Aoba had looked her in the eye and gave her respect-the only way that the Konoha Seducton Unit knew how to take. A slow, deliberate twist of the fingers that was placed over the heart in a quiet salute.

She looked at him with a brilliant smile and bowed her head modestly.

Hira had mimicked the gesture solemnly, and Aoba had watched as the pair of them had _clicked_ again.

Then he shook his head-because what did he need the pair of them unified again for? It'd only bring more trouble, really.

-----

He'd had a half-second of warning, barely enough time for him to leap up.

-----

And then they were face to face with someone who looked similar but had just enough of a difference to be _not_ Genma because Genma was dead had been for years and Aoba didn't even notice that he was getting dangerously close to hyperventilating until large hands were on the back of his neck, a steady steady presence, grounding him to _now_.

"This the idiot who got caught by you two numbskulls?"

Oh yeah, that was Genma, Aoba thought, somewhat wildly. But it wasn't because Genma was dead. Aoba'd gone to his funeral, had read the fucking report. Had visited the Memorial Stone. And this Genma-but-not wasn't even wearing the right insignia for a Konoha shinobi. Ergo, and quite obviously, this wasn't Genma.

"You didn't damage him, did you? The village will be pissed, and we need to stay there for another week before we can leave."

It was, equally as obviously, his evil twin. Or something.

"OK. Nice plan, but we've got it covered. You might get brownie points. Something. Maybe. And better hurry kiddies-you've only got another few days before you automatically fail, yeah?"

A twist of chakra and Aoba and dead-Genma's-evil-twin were outside the Gates.

"Hey. This yours?" And Aoba is causally let down off a leanly muscled shoulder and steadied on his feet, even as the Gate Guards lurch to their feet and hit the panic button below the desk. Stupid desk.

Gate duty is _so boring_ and Aoba can't help but think that he should probably focus a bit more on the situation at hand. Oh _God_, he'll _never_ live this down, will he?

He thinks of Izumo and Kotetsu's grinning faces, and knows that no, he will _never_ live this down. Ever.

A _click_ and a sudden lifting of weight around his neck clued him into the fact that evil-Genma had just taken off the rigged collar. His neck feels curiously light.

ANBU arrived just after evil-Genma had his hands around his freaking _neck_-a bit late, but hey, nobody's perfect. Aoba's not _bitter_ or _resentful_ or anything, really. Just shaken up by really gruesome, first hand knowledge on exactly how_ easily _ evil-Genma could've killed him right there.

"Hey hey!" evil-Genma stepped back from the jounin easily, hands up and away from Aoba's neck.

"Just returning him. It was just a . . . misunderstanding." A knife-edged grin, hard and sharp flashed.

_Ha. _I_ have diplomatic immunity. Beat that, bitch._

"We," the jounin hesitated. "thank you for your help." Grudgingly. A g_rudging_ thank you for your help. Aoba didn't blame him.

He hustled Aoba away from the tokujou and more jounin were summoned. Evil-Genma stood away from the group that had appeared, no weapons in sight. Projecting amicability.

Hah. Aoba knew better than to fall for that. He had met who seemed to be the man's hell-bound students.

Nope. Not believing him. Not believing him at all.

The jounin held still as he was inspected by various persons to make sure that he was clean.

A hiss of chakra and another person appeared on the scene, seemingly bearing no shinobi insignia but wearing Doku colors and clothes.  
"Gin?"

Evil-Genma [Gin, his name was Gin] dropped his hands and stood at casual attention, all business now.

"Got him. Pups are somewhere up there, " he jerked his head vaguely in the direction behind him, "and it'll probably take them a few to get here."

The young man-teenager, really- hummed in thought. Almost every eye was on him.

"Alright. I got the other one and –who's this?"

Eyes abruptly focused on Aoba again. The newcomer's eyes were deep and piercing, scrutinizing the jounin carefully.

"Hah!" The harsh scoff split the air. "Did the pups actually manage to get a _jounin_ in their paws?"

"Yup." Gin hopped onto a low limb and sat there, legs dangling like a fresh genin. "But I brought him back, and there isn't a scratch on him!"

Dark eyes focused on the man, softening slightly. "Good job Gin." He turned to the Konoha shinobi and tilted his head the barest inch. "Let's go."

Gin tapped down and they turned to go.

"Hold it." A jounin called after them.

"Hmm?"

"You're needed for a debriefing. How did you know where our operative was?"

"We keep watch over the pups every now and then, or the higher-ups would murder us, yeah? Gin was the one who was checked up on them when the jounin was there. He probably recognized the coloring of the clothes and decided to bring him back just to be on the safe side." Shikamaru spoke carelessly, already turning back towards his subordinate.

Aoba tapped the jounin's arm inconspicuously. "They knew that I was there," he whispered. "The one with the mask-he came to pick me up and asked to make sure that I wasn't uh, 'damaged', because he thought that Konoha would be pissed."

The jounin glanced at him, face unmoved. "Point blank lie?"

Aoba thought back on what the young man had spouted off. "Damnit!" He hissed in frustration. "Not with his wording there isn't!"

The Doku shinobi were already moving away.

-----

Author's Note:

I liiiiiive!!! *rises up from the grave, zombie style*

After partially 'abandoning' my baby for 3 months! *sniffs* Alright, excuse time!

I admit it-I completely got out of this fandom. I caught up with One Piece and I realized how good it was, and then I spent a month on that. Still going, actually. Then I caught up with Fairy Tail and I realized that sadly, there were no good fanfics! Well, none that I've seen yet. Then I caught up with FMA. . . and started like, 3 new manga! TT_TT

Hmm. . . so yeah. Don't worry, I full plan to finish this fic! No matter how long it takes me. . . It's definitely going to be at least 30 chapters at the rate I'm going. ^^u

I'm also looking for a beta for a one-shot in the HP fandom. . drop me a line if you're interested, please!

And as always, reviews are welcome!

~QuietInsomniac


	19. First Impressions

When the trio of Graduates were reunited, they barely looked at each other before lunging at Shikamaru and Genma viciously.

Genma didn't even bother, hopping up into a tree, into a position where he could see the fight.

Shikamaru's lips curled into a knife edged smile as he stepped aside easily.

"Balance." He smirked, grabbing onto Hira's arm and throwing him into the foliage.

"Speed." Rin's punch was blocked easily, leaving him flexing stinging fingers grimly.

"Power." Aki's kick was swatted aside contemptuously.

"You're all pathetic."

Rin growled angrily, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders. "Wanna repeat that, dickhead?"

Hira took up a place behind his teammate, unobtrusively weaving the signs for a basic genjutsu.

Aki flicked her wrists and senbon spiked between her knuckles. Genma eyed them. They were standard senbon, nothing special.

But the tokujou's eyes, trained to notice details, zeroed in on the faint sickly sheen on the tips of the needles. This made things marginally more interesting. A couple of Graduates that weren't even trained for straight combat, after all, were no match for a jounin who specialized in assassination. Especially since Genma was there.

No matter how good they were, they were going to get crushed. But Genma had been briefed, and he knew what was going to happen.

The young traitor would bat them around a bit, then have them pass the test. Grudgingly.

The Graduates charged, Rin bolting forward on all fours like the beast his clan jutsu turned him into –but, Genma noted, he didn''t seem to have it _quite_ mastered yet. His balance was off, and his control was shot. Aki darted around the clearing, sending the poisoned senbon hurtling towards the youth standing calmly in the middle. Hira sent out a pulse of chakra that turned everything Shikamaru saw three inches to the left. Or, well, that's what was supposed to happen.

A thread of chakra shattered the illusion, sending the Controller reeling from the throwback of a failed jutsu. Rin yowled in outrage of his teammates treatment and tried to bite Shikamaru's head off. Literally.

The young jounin twisted away from the boy easily, Rin overshooting his target and crashing headfirst into a tree, slumping at the base.

Aki looked at her fallen teammates and swallowed nervously. Rin wouldn't be of any help whatsoever, and Hira wasn't exactly known for his hand to hand combat. Rin was the powerhouse in their little cell. Aki was more overall support and traps in a straight fight.

Damn it, but fighting wasn't her specialty!

In the space of just a few seconds, the young man had completely defeated her team.

Genma watched soundlessly. Just as he had known would happen, Shikamaru had beaten them, badly. It was a bit anticlimactic, really. But he hadn't broken any bones, a testament to how far his control had gone.

"Up," The jounin ordered brusquely, "I'm going to evaluate you now. And so help me Trickster, boy, if your ass is not off the ground in two seconds, I will whip it."

Rin staggered upright, Hira standing shakily as well, complextion pale.

Genma grinned then, a slow, not-very-nice curl of his lips, baring the slightest hint of teeth and danger. "Listen up pups. Lesson One on this team. You keep up, and you excel. You won't like the consequences if you don't."

The three Graduates looked at the boy standing in front of them-he was only two, three years older? He seemed so much older, more broken. His eyes were gleaming with dark knowledge and his companion wasn't much better, dark amber scrutinizing even as he warned them.

Aki inhaled, held it, exhaled, and straightened up. Across the clearing, Hira and Rin drew from her outward confidance and stood steadily as well. "Bring it."

"We have nothing on them." Tsunade stated flatly, throwing herself back in her chair in frustration. "How the hell do we have nothing on them?"

Her amber eyes narrowed and she snapped out orders to the chunin outside her office. "I want Morino Ibiki here five minutes ago."

The man nodded and vanished in a burst of leaves and the scent of fall.

Tsunade took a deep breath, let it out, and hurled a sake cup away from her in a fit of temper, shattering the fine porcelain and denting the unfortunate wall. The bear-like man strode into her office exactly eightly seven seconds later. To his credit, he didn't even flinch as another cup whistled past his head, and he didn't so much as glance at the newly damaged wall either.

"Ibiki," Tsunade's voice was a slow drawl, communicating _exactly_ how much she was annoyed, "Why do we have _nothing_ on Dokugakure?"

"Because we've never heard of it before."

"Ever?"

"A few rumors about an unknown gathering of missing-nin but that's all in that was reported in the area that Dokugakure is supposedly in."

"Missing-nin? Dokugakure is comprised of missing-nin?" That was an interesting bit of information.

"Apparently." Deciding that his Hokage wouldn't be throwing any more pottery in his general direction, Ibiki buried his hands in his pockets.

"Who's their leader? Whoever it is must be one hell of a person to be able to command the loyalties of so many missing-nin."

"From what little we know, the leader is male and the village operates on a n odd, formal master/apprentice structure."

"Then those shinobi that are supposedly from Dokugakure are-"

"From what Raidou and the patrol that escorted them here witnessed, the older one is the 'apprentice' and the young one is the 'master'."

"Raidou?" That name sounded familiar. . .wasn't that the jounin that had been the Sandaime's backup bodyguard?

"Namiashi Raidou, jounin specializing in taijutsu and protection." Yep. That was him.

"What's his connection to them?" How does he know missing-nin?

"He doesn't know."

". . . He doesn't know? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Tsunade leaned backwards in her chair, steepling her fingers in front of her face in aggravated thought.

"He claims that he doesn't remember or recognize his relationship to them. As far as he's concerned, besides the older one-Gin- seeming to be uncannily familiar to Shiranui Genma, deceased, he has no relationship to them at all."

"Shiranui Genma?"

"A tokubetsu jounin who specialized in poisons and assassination. Listed as deceased several years ago. Namiashi-san and Shiranui-san were good friends and partners." Ibiki recited automatically, no emotion coloring his voice.

"But asides from a resemblance, there's no connection?"

"None that he recognizes, Hokage-sama."

"Right. Back to the mysterious duo. . . the younger one is in charge? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Well that would fit in with why he has so much power. . ." Tsunade trailed off, thinking.

"Pardon-" Ibiki started, "power?"

"Political ties and such. That's how he managed to get us to release the intruder-don't make that face at me Ibiki-san, I know that everyone has been dying to know how he managed that."

The interrogator blinked noncommittally and changed the subject. "So we need information about Dokugakure."

"Yes." Tsunade confirmed. "It doesn't seem to be a particularly large village so far, and most of the smaller ones peter out after a while. . . but it's still better to be safe than sorry. Who do you think could do it?"

Ibiki thought for a minute, mentally scanning profiles and discarding them, one after another. "Yamashiro Aoba would do it. He got back from a mission a few days ago, so he should be recovered enough for something like this."

Tsunade pursed her lips meditatively. "Yamashiro."

"Yamashiro Aoba, jounin specializing in ninjutsu, and fairly successful at infiltrations." Ibiki obeyed the silent request-order- and recited the jounin's basic dossier.

"He specializes in ninjutsu you said?"

Tsunade's experiences with ninjutsu-types had them mostly in the 'flashy bastard' category. The Yondaime with his stupidly bright Hiraishin and self sacrificing seals, Orochimaru with his fucked up jutsu and twisted corrupting poisonous bites.

"Yes." Ibiki nodded confirmation, and was dismissed several minutes later.

"What place does he have on the watch list?" Tsunade mused to herself, pulling out a thick folder and rifling through it. "Level Green, eh?"

She snapped the folder closed, and sent a summons out the window.

"Yamashiro, lets hope you can do this right." The Hokage murmured. She smirked.

_But then again, you're a shinobi of Konoha._

"You're all just as pathetic as I thought you would be. You-" Ranmaru pointed viciously towards Rin, who was lying on his back, exhausted, "Have no finesse. You're like a rabid bull, and unless you shape up, you're going to have to be put down! You-" the finger moved towards Hira, who was mimicking Rin's posture, face slowly cooling down from beet red.

"Are freakishly slow! What are you, a civilian? And _you_!"

He jabbed accusatively at Aki., who was panting, hands braced on her knees. "You have no power! I know that females have significantly lesser upper body strength then males without training, but I felt _nothing_ from your hits at all!"

The newly minted genin [because their sensei had grudgingly passed them] flushed.

Rin was the most vocal about not being happy with the assessments, but when that brought a foot on his back and him eating dirt, his teammates took the lesson silently and kept their dirty thoughts to themselves.

Genma, perched on the tree limb, nearly died laughing. He couldn't help it! The poor little lambs were all exhausted, and clearly over their heads.

His Master had been at it for at least 10 minutes, and the brats were positively reeking of shame.

They'd have to toughen up fast if they wanted to keep up with their sempai.

Genma could already see lots and lots of training heading their way.

But for the moment, they had already pretty much completed their diplomacy mission to that village, the leader just needed to sign the trading agreement.

Konoha hadn't interfered, so they could get moving, hopefully by the next day.

It'd take about five days to get back to Doku normally, but with the newbies, and he fact that it had taken them over a week to make the trek. . .

Eh. They'd either keep up or be abandoned. Of course, _He_ wouldn't be very pleased, but because of Shikamaru's status, they could probably get away with it.

Probably.

Genma sat up straight, laughter gone from his face. Damn, they couldn't abandon them.

But the idea that they had minions now, made it all worthwhile.

Minions. Genma wouldn't have to try very hard to sell that idea to his Master-and after all, they were, weren't they?

But in all seriousness, the brats had to have had something interesting for them to have been assigned to Shikamaru and Genma.

With a whistle and a click, the tokujou caught Shikamaru's attention.

"Stay there, recover, and try not to throw up." The jounin tossed over his shoulder as he headed towards his companion.

Standing, Shikamaru watched his new subordinates with dark eyes, waiting quietly. Genma dipped his head and glanced at him out the corner of his eyes, a sly smile quirking his lips. "So."

"So." Shikamaru parroted easily.

"What got them to us?"

A sigh unwound itself from the jounin's vocal chords as he leaned against the tree.

"Probably _His_ influence, their backgrounds, and their jutsu."

"Jutsu?"

"Yeah. The thing you have to do to graduate? They worked together and created a jutsu. B-ranked, apparently. Knocked their evaluator for a loop, it did."

"That sounds interesting. What's it do?"

Shikamaru snorted. "I have no idea, but we'll figure it out in a few minutes."

"Yamashiro." Tsunade's voice was calm and level, clear brown eyes connecting with his over the desk.

"Hokage-sama." Aoba nodded respectfully.

"I'll be frank with you, shinobi. I have a mission that you were recommended for. It's a relatively long-term mission, infiltration. A-rank. "

Aoba knew the drill. He had done infiltrations before. If the Hokage brought you in to discuss it, the mission would probably pay very well, but it was also probably either a deep-cover or 'long-term' as in over 6 months type of mission.

"I'll also tell you that I am slightly concerned about the recent. . . incident concerning you." Tsunade spoke confidently, belying her delicately chosen words.

Aoba flushed slightly, still slightly humiliated by that . . . incident. He liked that word for it, incident.

"There's nothing to be concerned about, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade looked skeptical, and prepared to push it. "Are you sure about that Yamashro? From the report, you were held captive by three genin. _Genin_. Do I need to be worried?"

Aoba decided not to let her know that the kids weren't even genin. That would be all kinds of bad for his ego and manly pride and things. He'd never live it down already, no need to add to it.

"As documented in the report, I was injured severely, and the hostiles had access to unknown restraining equipment." He tried not to sound defensive about it, but Aoba had the suspicion that it sounded that way.

"Yes, that was mentioned. This also happened two days ago, correct?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain that you're recovered enough for a long-term mission?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation in Aoba's voice. He had been mostly healed by the time he had reentered Konoha, and he had spent the entirety of the day before in the hospital, getting scanned and pumped with fluids and drugs.

Tsunade wordlessly held out a hand that glowed green. Aoba held out his palm in return, and his Hokage verified his health for herself.

"You heal fast," Was her only comment as she sat back. Deftly grabbing a scroll and holding it out to her jounin, Tsunade looked at him seriously. "Let's hope you don't need to use that ability for this."

_No turning back_,was the subtext. Aoba could handle that. He could totally handle that.

He grasped the blue-edged scroll in a large hand and opened it.

Author's Note:

Oh wow. First off: I AM SO VERY VERY SORRY THAT THIS CHAPTER HAS TAKEN SO LONG! Since the school year's almost over, I've been swamped in projects and finals, and my family's been going through some things. :( SORRY!

Congratulations on graduating Lils!

Thank you to all you who reviewed! I got back to those who I could, and I'm sorry if I didn't mention you in the last chapter. That would be: Maerchen Freunde, Lils, SilentDarkness101, WillowCarol, and lisa.

Those really meant a lot to me, and they also gave me the kick in the ass needed to continue writing this.

In response to Lil's question _all_ the way back in chapter 15, they're all thirteen (except for Rin, who is now thirteen-and-_two-_months). Shika is now 17, Genma is now (since I don't like his canon age) 28.

I've posted another story up, but it's in the HP fandom. Umm.. . Check out my profile, since I update that with status changes and how chapters are coming along. Alright, that's with the news.

As always, reviews are welcomed, huggled and cherished!

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


	20. Departure

"Brats."

Hira's eyes cracked open reluctantly, giving him a face full of the man-who-is-supposedly-sensei's unamused face not three inches from his own.

"Holy-!" He jerked up, instantly, kunai in his fingers, trembling in shock. Over to his left he heard Aki and Rin waking up with equally startled oaths, followed by the sound of coarse swearing as –Gin? Yes, Gin.- cuffed them more awake.

Shikamaru rose smoothly and wandered over, absently relieving the boy of his weapon in the process.

"Wake up time."

"Uh, Sensei?" Aki squinted up at the sky hesitantly, Rin glaring up next to her ill-temperedly.

"It's nighttime. Why're you waking us up?" He grumbled.

In a flash, Shikamaru was by his side smiling a little half smile with eyes that were pleasantly dazed and gleaming with madness. "Because I said so, pup. Got a problem with that?"_  
_

Rin flinched away instinctively, shuddering just a little too hard to be faked. "No sensei." _Bad. Ass. Awesome_.

A knife-edged grin flashed briefly. "Good."

"Now get up. We're leaving."

Hira got up at the command, while Rin took time to hastily crack his back before scrambling to his feet. Aki stayed on her back for a second then closed her eyes, took a breath and rolled upwards, landing perfectly.

They picked their packs up and looked at their sensei. He raised an eyebrow at their synchronization and took off towards the Gate.

Gin looked at them for a second before leaving as well, and Rin had started before Aki and Hira registered what was going on.

OoO

"Trickster's balls Rin, how are you _awake_?" Aki demanded irritably. She yawned and rubbed at her eyes, letting her pack fall off her shoulders with a _thump_.

Rin grinned at her, teeth suddenly seeming sharp. "I'm used to keeping odd hours."

Hira twitched. "How?" He grumbled. "You just became a genin. Like us."

"Your point?" Rin lost his smile, and looked seriously at his teammate.

"My point _is_," Hira snapped, "why do you guy seem to have missions already no your record when you shouldn't have even been let out of the Academy yet?"

Shikamaru blinked at the Controller's lack of knowledge. _Let them handle it_, he mouthed to Genma. He wanted to see how the rest of his team would react.

Aki looked at Hira in disbelief. "You're telling me that you didn't know about the runs?"

"The what?"

Rin snorted. "Obviously he doesn't sweetheart. Here, lemme try."

He faced his teammate seriously. "OK Hira. In the Corps, to attain Blue ranking, you go on a mission. It's not going to be ranked higher than C, but things always happen. Me and Aki are both Blue ranking members of the corps. That means that we've been on a mission already."

Hira scowled childishly and looked away.

"Are you. . ._pouting_?" Aki asked him, amused.

Flushing, her teammate denied it.

"Liar!" Rin called him out on it, and Hira cast around for something to throw into the concersation.

"What do the colors mean?"

"What colors?" Aki asked quizzically, after exchanging a glance with Rin. Behind them, Genma nearly stumbled at the sheer stupidity of the genin.

"The _ranking colors_." He called out, annoyed. Shikamaru grinned knowingly at him behind their backs. Rolling his eyes in return, he nodded and veered off from the group. The genin didn't even notice.

"Oh." Rin said blankly. "Well, you start out green, then rise to red, then blue, then purple, brown, black, yellow, white, it goes on for a couple more. To be a Master in the Corps you need ta have a gold rank. That's how it goes."

"So," Hira said after thinking about that for a second, "you and Aki are still low down?"

Aki was about to answer that, when Shikamaru butted in. "Yes, so you don't need to worry about being extremely outclassed by your teammates," he interrupted. "We're almost at the Gate, so shut up now."

OoO

Behind them, Shikamaru started to whistle softly, the noise camoflauged by the dialog. Receiving an answering flare of chakra down his bond with Genma, he picked up the pace, quickly overtaking the brats and leading them directly towards the Gate, already visible in the distance.

Landing softly at the large entrance to Konoha, the jounin handed over their papers. Looking over the documents, the chunin's partner started asking questions.

"Name?"

The Doku genin looked up at the question, unashamedly eavesdropping. Shikamaru noticed it out of the corner of his eye and made a mental note to teach subtlety to the brats.

"Ranmaru."

The chunin guarding the gate looked up from logging the party out. "_Full_ name." He amended.

Shikamaru looked at him steadily.

"Ranmaru."

"No family name?" The chunin pressed.

". . . No."

Mouth tightening imperceptibly, he looked down and wrote the name.

"Point of Origin?" The other one asked. The genin all shifted at that one, wondering as a whole if it was safe to give out the name of their village.

"Dokugakure." Obviously Sensei didn't have a problem with that, so they relaxed. Shikamaru made another note: BEAT subtlety into them. The genin were laughably readable. Hardly benefiting shinobi underneath his command. By the time he was done with them they weren't going to broadcast _anything_. He smirked to himself.

"Reason for visiting?"

"Diplomatic relations with Watashi village."

The chunin booking the departure looked up again, mildly tenser and infinitely more wary.

"Wari? That's a small village."  
"It is."

_But it's not on the list of villages protected by Konoha. In fact, it's completely independent of it's local Hidden Village. So, Doku's capitalizing on that. Deal with it, bitch._

"Uh-huh." The chunin read the subtext loud and clear. "You stayed in Konoha for. . . thirty five days?"

A nod was his only answer. Genma landed silently behind his master, amber eyes gleaming in the dark like some kind of demented hellcat. The chunin gulped quietly and wrote down the information.

"The genin have been in Konoha for. . ." He looked at the papers and frowned. "That can't be right," he muttered to himself. "They only stayed one day?"

"Yes. One day. It was all that was needed."

Another small tightening of the lips, but the chunin logged them, stamped the papers and waved them on out.

"Thank you for visiting Konoha," he drawled, almost sarcastically but still maintaining his respectful tone. "I hope you had a good time."

Genma smirked at him, a flash of teeth and a glitter of metal. Then they were gone.

OoO

"Alright," Sensei said as they leaped through the trees. "Introductions."

"My name is Shikamaru. You will refer to me as 'Sensei'. My usual codename is Ranmaru. I hold the rank of your jounin sensei. I like the dark, I don't like stupid useless brats. I specialize in assassination by weapon."

Well. . .a little exaggeration about the codenames never hurt anyone. He didn't have an official one anyway, it was about time he chose one.

The genin looked at their sensei in a new light.

He was only a few years older then them, but he was already a jounin, getting a team and specialized in a dangerous field.

His build was slender almost to the point of being skinny. They knew that it was lined with muscles, and he was almost ungodly in his flexibility. He wore a long shirt, dark in color, with wide sleeves that fell well past his fingertips, loose pants with no discernable pockets. Red stained bandaged wound around his stomach. Longish, dark brown hair was held back from his face with a hiate-ate, the metal plate proclaiming his loyalties hidden from sight.

His ears were pierced, and with two hoops in his left ear and two studs in his right he looked a little lopsided. Dark, intelligent eyes that were half closed, finished off his look.

"My name is Genma. You will also call me 'Sensei'. My usual codename is Gin. I am Shikamaru-sama's direct subordinate, as well as his partner. I hold the rank of tokubetsu jounin. I like the rain, and I don't like fish. I specialize in assassination by seduction."

With long, light brown hair, and a dark smile and laugh, the older of their two sensei seemed both more approachable and more detatched. He was stockier than Shikamaru, but he was most definitely _not_ muscle material. He had a dancers grace, and Aki could tell that he was also very flexible. His torso bore the jounin vest of Doku, dark tan cloth covering thick padding, no neck guard, and several pockets.

His headband was worn with the metal guard cocked against his head.

Rin jumped in feet first. "My name's Tsuiro Rin. I don't have a codename yet, but the Dollhouse is going to assign me one soon. I'm a Blue ranked member of the Seduction Corps. I use my clan's ninjutsu. I like dango and I don't like tight spaces."

Shikamaru nodded. He'd read all of that in the kids Academy profile.

"Girl, you next."

Aki startled but caught herself in time. "My name's Shiaka Aki. I also don't have a codename, but the Dollhouse is going to give me a codename at the same time as Rin." Hira listened carefully. This was one of his charges, kinda, so he had to know this stuff. Genma noticed this, and approved.

"I'm also Blue ranked member of the Seduction Corps. I use explosives and fans. I like rabbit and I don't like restraints."

Even Rin slanted a look her way at that last comment, but Aki ignored it. Shikamaru made a mental note about explosives. He didn't remember reading _that_ in the report.

As Hira pushed off a branch, he started his introduction.

"My name's Yashika Hira. I'm a red Controller of the Seduction Corps." He started off strongly, taking a secret sort of glee in the disbelief in Rin's face. "My codename is Nora-If you use that for fun Rin, I _swear_ that I will kill you and no one will ever find your body. I use basic seals and I have an interest in wire. I like fire and I _don't_ like _nicknames_." He stressed the last bit, looking straight at Rin.

Unfortuanately, looking at Rin meaningfully was a bit counterproductive, because as soon as Hira looked at him, Genma-sensei's hand shot out and saved him from ungracefully plowing into a tree.

"Pay attention, gaki."

Rin snorted a laugh. "Yeah boss-man. Pay attention." He wasn't quite fast enough to escape the cuff that landed around his head.

"That goes for you too, smartass."

Aki smiled quietly and kept on moving.

"At the rate we're going, we should end up in Doku in, say, four days. That's if the brats don't burn out or anything. Do you want to speed it up or just increase the hours?"

A small smile creasing Shikamaru's eyes, he looked at his subordinate. "Both."

He sped up a bit, once again taking the lead. Genma chuckled and fell back to form the rear guard.

OoO

Author's Note:

Hey! So, this time I'm trying to use scene breaks, because my story used those a bit and it gets kinda confusing if I don't have any in.

Thanks to Marechen Freunde, who reviewed!

Sorry that this chapter's late (coughcoughAGAINcoughcough), but when I realized that I was gone for 3 weeks, and am leaving for another 3 weeks tomorrow, I just couldn't leave you all hanging! So I wrote this.

In case you were wondering, that's probably why it's crappier than usual.

So as always, feel free to review! Like, dislike, etc. More reviews inspire more chapters! If you spot a typo don't hesitate.

Ja!

QuietInsomniac


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